7yo DS having trouble getting to sleep - any advice?

[ShadowMom]

My guy (sleeps by himself, and has for the last several months now) is having a lot of trouble getting to sleep at night, and it's very upsetting for him.

I have shared custody of him, which means he spends half of his time with me, and half of his time with his dad.  He doesn't appear to have a bedtime at his dad's, and I'm guessing he goes to bed pretty late. 

That's pretty unlikely to change, so I'm working with what I got.  I remodeled his bedroom and he likes it and feels comfortable in it.  But bedtime is really difficult for him because he has such a hard time falling asleep!

He goes to bed sometime between 8:45 and 9, as a point of reference. 

We have a bedroom routine (the whole evening is a routine, really). 

If anyone has suggestions they'd be appreciated.  I'm considering getting some audiobooks so that he can listen to those with the lights off and maybe they'll help lull him to sleep.  I also considered getting him a projection nightlight so there's something on the ceiling to watch. 

Help me think outside the box, mamas.

Thanks in advance.

[beebalmmama]

Is he sleeping at both houses throughout the same week? That's tough. I know that even for me it takes me a couple of days of sleeping in the same place in order to sleep well, especially fall asleep.

Is there something that you can keep the same at both places, white noise, audiobooks, or something else you think he might like. I know that for me if I travel with the same pillow I sleep better because it feels familiar. So you may want to compare bedding with what he has at his dads. I know pretty little things. I hope someone else has some more suggestions.

[rzberrymom]

My 6 year old often has trouble falling asleep by herself if things aren't just right.

- She likes falling asleep in the room next to the living room so that she can hear us, even though it isn't her room and she won't spend the whole night there--I take her to the bathroom before I go to bed, so I just move her into her bedroom at that point.

- Sometimes she likes listening to classical music while she falls asleep. We picked out the songs together and I can hear her in there humming along before she drifts off. (I think music might be more relaxing than an audiobook.)

- She likes those stars you can stick on the ceiling that glow in the dark

- We used to have this turtle that glows and projects constellations onto the walls--she loved that too.

My feeling has been that all this is pretty normal--humans all went to bed at around the same time until the invention of electric lights, and folks shared rooms and beds with others until fairly recently in our history. So I'm not sure I'm convinced that, evolutionarily, our kids are meant to be lying around by themselves in a big dark room.