Almost 9yo takes HOURS to go to sleep

[27Bumblebees]

My almost 9yo dd is doing my head in. She has never been a good sleeper, didn't consistently sleep through until around 3yo and often wakes in the night. The problem is the evening. She is clearly tired, yawning and rubbing eyes, but fights it so hard that she takes forever to fall asleep. Then is tired in the morning, rinse and repeat.

Here's her routine:

6pm dinner
6.30 Shower, pjs,
7pm "supper" of a biscuit and some milk
7.30 get teeth brushed and fully ready for bed
7.45 reading
8pm lights out (night light, white noise, fan by the bed as she says it helps - we're in summer here) including a nice cuddle and chat.

It gets to 9.30 and she's been out of bed 5 times for water, needing another wee, sore tummy muscles, not tired, worry about school. I've caught her reading in the dark when I've said to listen to her body and rest.

She doesn't have screen time after dinner at all.

Besides drugging her unconscious (obviously a joke), what can I do??? She is pretty highly strung temperament wise, a worrier, and stubborn. Certainly not easy going like her little brother who just yawns and drops off to sleep with a cuddle.

Ideas anyone??

Is it just you trying to manage all the kids through the evening or is their dad around? Appreciate it's very difficult trying to deal with the different ages but if I tried to basically start putting mine to bed after dinner at that age they'd be up all night - would her dad take her for a walk or something to burn off some energy?

I just think she's going to bed too early. My son is 9 and he's never in bed before 9pm, and fully active and using energy until then. Once he's in bed we read together then I read to him, and then he goes to sleep. If I started trying to wind him down at 7pm or expected him to go to sleep at 8pm he would be wide awake and restless, as I would be if I was sent to bed too early.

Thanks for all this advice. I like the idea of taking her for a walk in the evening, and keeping her up a bit later.

Dh is around 5.30-7.30 usually then working until late most nights so kind of useful.

Baby is up multiple times even before we go to bed so there has to be someone available to go to her all evening, which is very very shit and gets in the way but that should pass with time. She's a terrible sleeper too, and even though she "shouldn't" (according so some posters) wake with a shower running, she does bc the pipes are on the other side of her wall so that's why I mentioned it.

We all live on one level so that's also causing distraction for eldest daughter as she can hear us moving around in the kitchen etc.

This has been really helpful to hear others' routines and ideas to try