5-year-old has trouble falling asleep

[Meli65]

With summer, my ds1 has been having a lot of trouble falling asleep at night. His bedtime has been 8:30 for a while and I'm wondering if it's too early for him, or if I need to try a different routine at night. He's been getting up lately between 8:00 and 9:00 am, and not falling asleep until after 9:00 p.m.

I'm thinking eleven hours is about right for a kid his age -- what do you think? I make sure he gets good vigorous exercise and fresh air every day.

What can we do to ease him into sleep? Right now he takes a bath and then one of us reads to him in bed for about twenty minutes. He's wide awake and restless still, and I'm not sure what to do for him. I think once he knows how to read he'll be very happy to read in bed until he's sleepy, but am not sure what to do in the meantime. Any ideas or advice would be most welcome, thanks!

[robin3]

My 7yo son has always had trouble falling asleep,too. One thing that we do is let him listen to stories on tape or CD after we have read to him at night. We get most of them from our local library but have ordered some from Chinberry books. They have a great selection!
Now that he reads some on his own he will read in bed but still prefers to listen to his stories. And sometimes classical music.
good luck!

[greeny]

This might seem counterintuitive (and might not work ), but what about trying an earlier bedtime? Sometimes kids/people who are overtired have a harder time falling asleep.

But seriously, I could be totally off base with this!

[Meli65]

I have given the "put 'em to bed earlier" advice myself to other moms -- I think there is some truth to it. Not for ds though -- he's not wired at night, just wide awake and not sleepy.

I will try the books on tape thing though. I was thinking to get him a personal CD player for his birthday since he is enjoying listening to them in the car -- maybe I'll do it sooner though.

[octobermom]

I ussually find moving to an earlier bedtime works better.. but honestly I'd just try eaither way give it a few chances and see. To me if you can move bedtime back to 9pm and he goes peacefully down it will be will worth it. Same with an earlier.
My DD very much is guided with the sun were lucky to live some place where this is a possible way to set bedtime (between 7:30-9pm depending on season)

[beanma]

10 hrs seems to be what my dd1 (6.5) needs. she will sleep late if she needs it, but she stayed up until about 9:30 last night and popped up at 7:30 this morning. that's typical. let her stay up til 10 and she sleeps in until 8. get her to bed by 9 and she'll get up about 7. on the rare occasion that i can get her to bed by 8:30 she'd be ready to go by 6:30. she's a night owl, though, and it's hard to get her to bed that early.