Can't Get My Kids to Sleep at a Resonable Hour

Wow!! You need to come over at 1am for a play date. My children are 2 and 4 as well and are still coming into my room every 5 mins...sometimes till 2 or 3 am. Drives me up the wall. I have found no solution. Sadly no one has offered me one that works. Everyone just tells me take a firm hand. That so doesn't work! Let me know if you find something that works!

I have two girls that had the same problem when they were the same age. I found that analyzing their eating and changing the types of foods they ate and when they ate helped. I also made a daily schedule that included meals, play, educational time, bath, etc. with no food or drink after 7pm. I set the bedtime at 8pm so by 7:30 pajamas were on, teeth were brushed, and they were in bed with "relaxing time" of mommy or daddy reading to them until lights out at 8pm. I also purchased a nighttime cd that I would turn on at lights out on a low volume (such as Kenny Loggins "Back to Pooh Corner"). All of these gradually helped my daughters. A consistent daily schedule gives them a feeling of security and normalcy. Granted there are times we can't always stick to the schedule, but the more often the better. I hope this helps!!!

Hi A.! My 18 month old daughter doesn't go to sleep til 9:30. It appears to be her natural schedule and it allows my husband time to play with her since he rarely gets home before 7:30. In this sense it works well for us. The challenge began with she approached 18 months and realized that she could prolong this time to 10:30+. So we began to prep her for bed around 8:30 with PJs, play time and book time. Then just before bed at about 9:15 she brushes her teeth, gives kisses and we settle to sleep. I have also moved my max time for her to end a nap from 6 pm to 4:30pm. If she naps past 4:30 now she won't sleep til 10 or later. I have actually set her nap time to begin by 2pm at latest if she didn't nap or had a short nap in the morning. I have had to lovingly, yet firmly had to tell her, "It's sleepy time, Semira. You need to sleep." After 2-3 times of saying that, she settles into a nap. If she napped well in the morning many times she will not take a nap in the afternoon.

These little adjustments are helping us to reach a consistent bedtime that works for her and our family. If she sleeps too late in the morning it does throw the schedule off a little but we are working on preventing that. Another thing that helped was adjusting when dinner happened for her. For her, dinner around 6:30 and a snack with daddy at around 8 fills her sufficiently til morning and gives her time to digest before bed.

Good luck, J.

Hi! This is my first time on this site and I'm really new. But my daughter is 7, and what works for us is having a routine, kind of easing her into sleepytime. She showers at 8, picks out what she wants to wear and then picks out a book that she wants to read to me, sometimes 2. Then we might discuss the book when she's done, or maybe discuss something that happened that day that is important to her. For example, if I had to discipline her for not listening, this is the time we talk about it or if there was something exciting that happened during her school day, it's really up to you and your daughters. Then of course, we snuggle a little and she's ready to snooze.

Be consistent. Put them in bed at 7pm.. over and over and over... even if they don't fall asleep right away. The consistentcy will begin to set their clocks. It make take a month of this, but it will help. Another good source is "the no cry sleep solution for toddlers"

I found with my dd, the earlier she went to sleep the BETTER she slept and the longer she slept. So, her bedtime is 7am and many nights she sleeps till 8am (it took me almost 2 years to get her to sleep more than an hour or two at a time!)

try putting in a cd audiobook at bedtime you can get these at the dollar store next to save a lot kat

A.,
I really think that the key is getting them up early. During the summer my kids stay up late because they can sleep in until 8 the next day. After about a week of 6 AM alarm clocks, I bet your girls will be ready for bed. Even if you just get them up early to lay around and watch cartoons, at least they'll be up.
Also when they do get up, just send 'em right back no questions asked. No drinks, no questions, no stories, no nothing after they're tucked in. After a while they just might realize that they're getting up for nothing.
Hopefully this helps. Good luck to you!

Both of my kids are like this. Sometimes my 7 year old doesn't sleep at all. She stays in her bed but I will find her still awake when I go to bed. This is mainly a problem on weekends and school breaks. I found that the kids� waking up earlier is more effective than anything else. Everyone gets up at 6:30 on school days and we rarely have troubles getting them to sleep anymore. My 2 (almost 3) year old cannot nap anymore; if I do make him nap then he won't be asleep until 10 or 11.

I agree... 7 pm every single night ... you'll find that they eventually will adjust to this schedule and sleep longer. Letting your children stay up past 8 pm at the most will cause them to be 'overtired' which makes it even harder for them to fall asleep. A half hr before bedtime set a routine... settle down (no rough housing), have a bath, put on pajamas, read one short story, then off to bed we go.
This has worked wonderfuly with our family... kids and babies alike need schedules... they become anxious when they never know what to expect.
Best of luck... I hope you find something that works for your family.

My 5 year old daughter goes to bed by 9:30pm everynight, but we make a game of it.
We pick up her room and get her jammies on, brush her teeth, and then we have a little silly rhyme we do to say goodnight.
I think routine is a great thing, but I have always had a problem with putting her to bed too early.
Unlike some kids she really doesn't need that much sleep. She stopped taking naps at 2 and never went to bed before 9pm.
If she slept too long she would be so grumpy.

Each child is different so while one child might like to sleep longer and the other not so much.
Good Luck!!
D.