1St Grader Sleep/bedtime Issues

Sounds like too much sleep. What time does he go to bed? 3 or 4pm?

Sounds like he needs to let some energy out after school or after homework is done.

Normally I would say to ignore behavior like this, taking your attention away. He wants to smirk? Fine, he can do it into the mirror above his dresser with you happily in the family room doing something else. He wants to be pokey? Fine - get hm ready for bed put him in his room, and say your goodnights. After 1 or 2 days of being exhausted, he'll figure it out.

But 11-13 hours of sleep? How do you manage that? Is he actually sleeping that amount of time, say, on a weekend when no alarms are set? Have you looked into why he needs so much sleep? I'll assume all medical reasons have been ruled out.

And on a school night, how do you manage that? If he gets up at 7 AM, are you saying he is going to bed at 6 PM? So he's eating dinner at 4:30, getting a bath, brushing teeth, reading a story, and going to sleep? That seems unbelievable! If I were him, I'd be rolling my eyes and pushing back big time. Maybe give that schedule a second look.

'phenomenal' behavior at school often means that the safety valve gets let off at home. i'd address that first. be calm and firm. yelling gets him banished, telling parents no or ignoring would get handled according to the circumstances, but regardless it gets dealt with immediately, quietly, firmly and in a no-drama zone.
but i'm not seeing the bedtime issues as anything so egregious. if you've got an overall good kid, i'm not sure i'd break out anything big and dramatic for smirking. kids have got to be able to express a nasty or frustrated emotion from time to time. making a face just isn't something i'd rear up and feel a big need to discipline unless it was in a completely inappropriate situation.
but why on the gods' green earth would you think he needs more sleep? 11-13 hours per night? does he have a medical issue?
i'd guess his reluctance to go to bed is because he's spending SO much time there.
i'd run him ragged in the afternoon or early evenings to tire him out, then have a good solid bedtime routine. if he moves slowly, well, then he loses some reading time. my kids LOVED their bedtime stories, and having them cut short would be all the impetus they'd need to get a move on.
maybe you just need to move his bedtime back a bit and make sure he's actually tired.
khairete
S.

Well, it could just be him trying to "safely" exercise his opinion. I'm sure he's good in class and he's
active. I do, however, think he's going to bed too early at 7:45 for his age & how long he sleeps. Does he
act out right before bedtime most of the time? Make sure he has some fun down time like watching a cartoon
now and then, playing a board game etc. Try letting him go to bed at 8:30 for awhile and see if the "acting
up" stops. From what I'm reading, I'm thinking it could be tied to the early bedtime. While he does seem
to have a lot to do/activies (school/scouts/wrestling), it may be a good idea to adjust bed time to just a
wee bit later (8:30). I think he may be having a hard time with the "time" for bed. Adjust the time & see w
what happens. Also, make sure he's not over scheduled for after school sports & activies. Find a "happy medium".

After being so good at school all day, it's fairly common for kids to push boundaries at home, where Mom and Dad give unconditional love. You probably need to stay calm and consistent and keep reinforcing the rules.

My 6 year old gets 10 to 11 hours of sleep each night, so 13 sounds like a lot to me. But kids are different, and you need to meet your child's needs.

What time does your son go to bed? What time does he typically wake up? Do you have to wake him, or does he get up on his own? Those are some things to consider.

I have a daughter who's personality sounds very similar to your son. My question to you is how do you react to your son's behavior? My daughter will fight us on just about anything, but I have found several ways to shut down the battles. It took me years and we still have trouble now and then, but things are much easier now. First off, most definitely it could be sleep related. Turns out my daughter had sleep apnea and we moved forward with removing her tonsils and adenoids. That really helped her mood during the day and immediately cut down on the tantrums and defiance. It wasn't a cure-all though. She has pretty severe anxiety and that plays into her behavior at home as well. Knowing that she is struggling all day at school with the anxiety, I empathize with her need to release some of the pressure when she is at home. I try my best to understand and work with her, rather than uphold rigid parenting norms of discipline. "Normal" parenting doesn't work for her.

What we do is keep a consistent routine as much as possible and plan ahead. I have also started giving her a heads up about the upcoming plans of the next few days so she can process when she'll be able to do her own thing and when I'll need her to handle responsibilities. She doesn't transition well when she's doing something she wants to be doing.

We also make sure she gets good food and vitamins. She's taking fish oil and vitamin D daily, along with a probiotic. I do my best to get her to go to sleep on time each night. She's not a great sleeper though ,and never has been. So, I have even been known to sit on her bed now and then to get her to relax and sleep earlier.

I make lists for her routine and break things into small steps. She likes following a list and doesn't like when mom and dad tell her or remind her to do things. It's stressful for her to have too much thrown at her. I think she feels pride in herself when she can do the routine by herself too. When she was younger we used a picture list that I created with clip art.

The rest of it is patience and removing myself if things get heated. If she's overwhelmed, I try to ask her what I can do to help her...before she gets into meltdown mode. If she's already there, I ask her to go take a breather (Not a time out, but more a calm down moment in her room). If she's too worked up to leave the battle alone and I'm getting annoyed, I try to remove myself for a bit to cool off and get some space. I let her know that I'm doing that and why, so I can teach her that it's okay to be upset, but you need to cope with those feelings and find a good way to calm down.

I'd recommend getting into therapy if you continue to see behaviors like this. They can really help guide you and your child with ways to cope. They often teach breathing methods, visualizations, they also make the child responsible for their own behavior and encourage them to want to change.

I'm not sure if you have other children, but we do and the most important thing I can tell you is that it's not YOU. Our other child has a different personality and with the same parenting is super easy in comparison. So, don't feel guilty, just work on new ways to parent. Let go of the traditional approach and see what else works.

Mine would be tired at that age if 830 bedtime if they'd been active that evening.

What I would do, and have done with mine, is get them ready for bedtime early. So if he gets home from Scouts, get him in pajamas, teeth brushed, etc. as soon as he's home. That way he won't be fighting you. I bathe mine early and into pajamas the evenings I want them to go to bed early - it just seems to calm them down.

That's an age where some behavior like this comes out - or at least it did in mine. It was a bit of a phase. I would think three nights a week may be a bit - some kids can handle it some would react a little. Maybe he is. If mine are being difficult, I have no problem skipping an activity.

Good luck :)

Maybe he isn't tired at bedtime. That sounds like an awfully early bedtime for a six year old, especially if he doesn't need to get up until 7:00am. My kids never needed more than 10 hours of sleep at night. Also, if he has activities most evenings, and then goes straight to bed he isn't getting any down time to just play and relax, which is very important. I would try making bedtime and hour later.

Maybe you are asking him to sleep more than he needs. My K and 4th grader sleep 9-10 hours per night (asleep at 9:30, they wake between 6:30 and 7:30AM).

For the slow moving part - my kids' favorite part of bedtime is that I read to them before bed. I send them up to get ready for bed at 8:45. If they take more than 15 minutes to get ready for bed, I don't read to them because it's too late. So, if they get ready quickly, they get a book chapter. If they don't, they don't. Other than the time limit, I don't micromanage them getting read for bed - even when I hear running feet, thumps, etc, that tells me they are messing around. I ignore it all, and then I go up at 9. If they are in their room with teeth brushed with PJs on, I read a book chapter. If they are not, I wait for them to finish up, give kisses, and they go to bed without a book.

Doing it this way provides the immediate reward/punishment (the book or lack thereof) and also takes the power struggle out of it, because what happens is completely in their hands and they know it.

I think he's getting enough sleep for his age.
He needs more to do to do physically in the afternoon to get tired enough for bed.
Maybe he could rake leaves, and jump in the piles.
An after school taekwondo class would be good too.

I suspect it's a power struggle more than sleep issue. I would take a look at what he MUST do and what he can do. If he doesn't want to get into PJs, then let him be uncomfortable in his jeans. I would say that he MUST brush his teeth (or allow you to do so), and he MUST be in his bed at x time, regardless of whether or not he feels sleepy. I would give him options like does he want his bath before or after dinner or does he want 10 minutes to play if he's ready on time or does he want a story? Also, if his behavior is less than stellar at home but OK in school I would consider that either 1. the teachers have more of his respect (so what do you do differently?) or 2. He's been so good all day, he falls apart at home. I'd try not to battle with him where you don't want to. I would have a consistent bedtime routine and when you are not engaging in struggles casually mention things like how bodies need fuel and rest.

Something we also did with my SD is we told her if she wanted to earn a later bedtime, she had to do all the things she needed to do ON TIME and get up and ready for school for a week ON TIME and we'd bump it back. It was all on her after that. So maybe pick 8PM and see how he does with it, and keep it at 8 til he earns 8:30. If he's "earning" a later bedtime by being belligerent, this method may take that off the table.