How can I help my 5yo get to sleep?

[Aranea]

Night after night, 5yo dd1 lays in bed complaining that she is tired and can't get to sleep. Or that witches might come in. Or that her legs hurt. Or whatever.

I don't know how to help her get to sleep, and she is so tired. It's making her sleep too late in the mornings, so we're always late for school too.

I give her supper at 5, into bath by 6, and then either put her to bed at 6.30 if she is really knackered or leave her in front of the TV till 7 while I put her little sister to bed. Then she has a cup of warm milk in bed while I read to her, we have a cuddle and a brief chat and I say goodnight. But she is staying awake till about 9.00 complaining about one thing or another.

Please please please, any ideas on how I can get her to sleep more quickly? I don't know what to do!

bump

has she got a night light?

6.30pm is quite early for a 5 year old so maybe she isn't tired enough at that time?

hello -two things, not suggesting The Answer, but what we do for our 5yo dd:

1. Stories/quiet music on a CD player that she can listen to til she falls asleep. I had tapes when I was little (and a crap sleeper - and still am!) and it solved the prob for my parents and now for me
2. That seems quite early to bed to me? Our bedtime routine for 5yo would finish at 8pm, little sis at 7.30 and she's 2.

hth!

i think it is too early as well. what time does she get up? how about if she went to sleep at about 8pm?

I know it seems like an early bedtime. She usually goes up at 7 not 6.30, though, the 6.30 is only when she is too tired to cope any more. Before she started having difficulty getting to sleep, I could pretty confidently predict that if she wasn't asleep before 8, she would be shattered in the morning. So I don't think her early bedtime is the problem - she actually seems overtired rather than not tired enough.

She does have a nightlight, but it doesn't seem to help. And refuses my offers of music on the CD player. Bah.

I like the idea of story CDs though, and think she would too. I might try it (is there a danger she might actually stay awake longer to hear the story though?)

fishie, she gets up at 7 if she goes to bed at 7 (and I'm out of her room by about 7.30). But the last few nights she has been waking up at 8.15 all tired and miserable, and then no hope of getting to school by 9.

Watching with interest as our 4.5 yr old does this too. In bed for 7 then stalls us with endless questions and also saying that he's worried or frightened. Current method is to promise him we'll keep checking on him - going up every few minutes. This used to work and he would be asleep by the third check, but tonight we were up and down the stairs like I don't know what. I know he'll wake in the night screaming for us to check on him...

He's always been one for getting overtired, but maybe we need to push bedtime back a bit too? Will also try the story CD as he has new a CD player from Santa.

if she's anything like me, it would normally be that I wanted to stay up to listen, but would just fall asleep! There was of course the odd time when I couldn't sleep even with, but it was comforting to have "someone with me" (I was a bit of a scaredy cat too).

The weird side effect is that I know some things like Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland etc pretty much off by heart (when I was little you could get classic children's books on tape free with lemonade bottle labels!). Probably not the worse thing though.

DD1 has things like thomas the tank engine, collections of nursery rhymes, mr men etc. You can get loads of stuff from itunes now, much easier than when I was little.

Hm, well I shall select the CDs with care then! Quite like the idea of Alice actually.

that's a really early bedtime! mine go to bed at 8 and are asleep by 8.30 to 9.00. they listen to cds as well - they often do them free with the torygraph etc so worth looking out for, or borrow from the audio section at the library. and we have a nightlight thing in the room as well.
no moaning and complaining or coming back downstairs is tolerated they get very short shrift indeed if they reappear downstairs
I also gave ds1 a bottle of rescue remedy to spray on his tongue to help him sleep - it does sweet fa but he likes the idea of it.

I know it is an early bedtime. But honestly, if she is awake after 8 she is shattered the next day. And she starts to be completely hopeless and tired after about 6.30 or 7 in the evening.

She never gets out of bed, she is absurdly well behaved, she just can't get to sleep poor girl. There are pitiful cries of 'I'm so tired and I can't get to sleep!' So I really really don't think it is because she is in bed too early.

ah but asleep at 8 is different to going to bed at 7. i have one child so can do this, but i do stay with ds till he goes to sleep. it takes about 20mins from story to escape.

I used to stay with her till she went to sleep and was usually there for an hour. Sometimes more. I had to put an end to that when I got pregnant with dd2! If I want her to be asleep by 8, I need to be out of the room by 7.30 usually. But it's all gone wrong recently. I think it's because she is so overtired by school.