My 5 Year Old Daughter Will Not Go to Bed Till Late and Hates Going to Bed

My 5 year old goes to bed at 8pm, and is up by 530am.

Is she still taking naps? Stop the naps, this will make her more willing to go to bed at a reasonable time.

Tell her she is going to be a big kid, and big kids don't take naps, they go to bed early and get up early.

Remember you are the adult, and she is the child.

Have you read "Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child?" It is really good. The author's reaction to almost every sleep problem is that maybe their bedtime is not early enough. I will tell you that my 5 year old daughter goes to bed at 7:30. We recently upped that from 8:00 because we were having too many struggles at bedtime. If you are having struggles it may mean that they are too tired by the time you are trying to put them down. Try earlier and earlier bedtimes until you find one that works. And stick with it.
I H. that helps.

I am a pre-k teacher in a public school and I deal with sleepy children coming to school every day. They are cranky and cannot concentrate on tasks. First I would buy her an alarm clock, something she picks out herself, and make it a fun thing to have (she'll have an alarm clock like mommy and daddy do). Then I would use the alarm clock to limit (not eliminate), her napping time during the day, that way she may be sleepier when it's time to go to bed at night. Then when the alarm goes off in the morning,and she can get up without being cranky, she will know that she is a big girl who can be ready for school.

H.,

Are either you or your husband a "night owl" also? I know that I have ADD and I can't get to sleep until late at night and I don't want to wake up in the morning. Most people with ADD are this way. Have you thought about getting her tested?

One thing that also helps with me and many of my friends is taking a hot bath in BeautiControl's Therapeutic Bath Minerals or Detoxifying Bath Soak. A hot bath with these can really make you sleepy.

My 6 year old goes to bed at 8:00 and gets up between 6:30 & 7:00 (we homeschool).

You can't actually force her to go to sleep, but you can make her stay in her room, quietly. First, you need to decide what things she really LOVES. Make a list of 3-4 things (playing with friends, dance lessons, soccer, playing outside, riding bike, etc). Make a chart listing the activities along the top (in order from least important to most important), dates or days along one side, and boxes under each activity.

Sit her down and tell her your expectations. In other words: "You will go to bed and stay quietly in your room at 8:00 (or other time you choose) and you will be up, dressed for breakfast by 7:00 in the morning". Tell her she may leave her room once at night for a necessity (drink, bathroom). If she is noisy or leaves her room more than that, or she fails to get up and ready for breakfast in time, you'll place a check in the first box for that day. If it gets checked, she loses that privilege/activity for a day. Keep checking more boxes if need be, until all 4 are filled. If she gets all 4 checked, she gets to go to bed an hour earlier the next night.

It's important not to warn her, nag or get upset when she fails to follow the rules. Just make the check and remind her about the rule and why she's getting the check. You want her to take on the responsibility of getting to bed and getting up. Expect resistance and even protesting the new rules and consequences. If the activities are really important to her, she'll eventually decide that it's in her own best interest to go to bed and wake up on time.

Good luck.

I think 10 hours of sleep is appropriate for her age so just decide how much time you will need to get ready for school and adjust her bed time from there. My 7 year old goes to bed at 8:30 and gets up at 7:15. Just curious though, when my boys were that age they were usually the first ones up in the morning no matter how late they stayed up. Is she energetic throughout the day or sort of lethargic. You might want to talk to her doctor, there could be some underlying issue that is making her more tired than usual in the morning.

I am sorry this got so long but it is a situation all parents face one way or another. Do you have a bedtime routine for the 5 year old? How about the 10 month old? You may want to put the 10 month old down and make a big deal about the 5 year old being the big sister who gets to stay up later and will soon be going to school. She needs to be getting ready for begining school. Make it a special thing for her. You might take just her to the school for a visit so she will be excited about what she gets to do next Aug. or Sept. Usually schools have a special day for this. As a former early childhood teacher I recommended that children be in bed by 8 definitely 9. Bathtime with bubbles, reading a book to her with just mommy and me time, soft music playing in her room (does she have her own room?) a special blanket or toy to sleep with (let her chose it) anything to let her know this is special for her. With my children I used a kitchen timer to let them know when it was bedtime, etc. They helped me (watched me) set it 10 minutes before whatever the upcoming event was and knew that when the buzzer sounded it was time to get their bath, go to bed, etc. It may take her several nights to settle down to this routine but to assure her a more successful school year she needs to rested. Leave her in the room alone in bed with the door open and check on her every 5 or 10 minutes if she is upset. You will lose ground if you let her come out of her room. Hopefully, the 5 or 10 minutes will extend into 20 plus but it may take several nights extended into weeks. Do not defeat your goal by giving in. You cannot begin too early and I know it will be hard with summer coming on. Getting her up may be a difficult, is there a breakfast she enjoys, maybe have her choose her clothes the night before. It is easier if you select 3 or so outfits then let her choose from that. I even reverted to washing one of my children's face with a warm washcloth on some mornings. Good luck, all this is a part of parenting and there are other things you will face that will make this seem minor. School is where they go at 6 so the sooner you begin this the easier mornings will be for the next 12 years. Good luck and it will all work out.

I go through the same thing when school is out for long periods of time like spring break, christmas break, summer especially, and like when oklahoma had that horrible ice storm. I don't know if it hit other states because we went 6 days without electricity so i couldn't see the news. What i do is make them stay up as long as i can in the day time and they are drained by dinner time they can barely keep their heads up just to eat and then i get them to bed asap. After a few days of this they get back on track. They are 6,5, & almost 4 and they get very cranky and fussy but it's worth it because you get more sleep at night.

hi H.! My niece was doing the same thing and she always wanted to come and stay the night at my house.Well i ended up keeping her for a week and here is what i did. that day i noticed if we went any where she would fall asleep in the car, after she ate her lunch she wanted to chill out and watch a video which she would fall asleep, after dinner if she would kinda want to the same. so that night i gave a lavender bubble bath around 7, then we had a nice snack my children at that time were getting ready for bed there selves so she went in with me to kiss and tell my boys goodnight then i took her to her bed and had pick out a book we read it then i told her it was time for her to go night-night. of course she started crying she now wanted her momma. i reminded her that she wanted to stay and that we have a bed time here! She cried for an hour and 10 minutes.I did go in and check on her every 15 minutes but never talked to her again after i explained the first time. the next morning my children got her up around 7 and she was happy full of energy and also had a great day. we followed the same routine the next night and she had a moment for about 10 minutes then was fast asleep. the next night no trouble at all. so my suggestion is get her up early and make sure she has a lot of physical activites throughout the day, has no naps, and has a nice full meal along with a relaxing bath then let her pick out a book,and let her know what big girl bedtimes are,(ours is 8:30).that 1st night will be tougher on you than on her,but be strong enough for the both of you. the next day let her know how refreshed she looks and how much energy she seems to have. the key is keep the routine and announce the time like bath time, story time, and bed time also let her look at the time on the clock even get her an alarm clock for her room like big girls have so she can get use to setting her alarm with your help and and getting up and dressed in a certain time frame that will work with both of your schedules.

just keep waking her up early in the mornings and make her stay up all day

You MUST have a routine. Ours is ....
1 Dinner
2 30 min to an hour of movies/playtime whatever he chooses
3 Bath
4 Brush teeth
5 Restroom
6 Tuck in
7 Story (we take turns choosing)
8 Prayers
9 hugs
10 lights out

I put mine to be at 7:30 on weekdays and 8:00 or 8:30 on weekends (this will usually given them enough time to actually get to sleep at a descent time). When we started doing this we would wake him up between 7:00 and 8:00. That way 6:00 wasn't a shock when it rolled around.
If we change the routine it takes him longer to go to sleep. A routine is like a security blanket when they are this age. Mine did resist quite a bit at first. So, we took away toys, but we also talked about why this was important, after all they are little people. They may not act like they are listening, but it does get through to them. The main thing is keep trying, and don't give up. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I have the same problem with my 4 year old. She has been that way from day one. I contribute it to her being born at night because she was awake the whole night just looking around and observing all of her surroundings. She loves to sleep in and would if I let her. I work full time so she has to go to daycare and must wake up at 7 am. Some mornings are better than others but I am usually getting her dressed while she is still half asleep. I am trying to move her bed time back slowly each week and that is helping a bit. Good luck

Lots of good suggestions here, so I son't need to add to those. But nobody has mentioned TV, which has been lately proven to affect children badly when it's close to their bedtime. You'll probably have to turn it off after dinnertime, which will be good for you, too. I've successfully raised three teenagers without TV; each are a delight and far more interesting than their peers.

We made a bed time ritual that solved all of our problems. Every night our girls have to be in bed by 8:00 so we can read two books. Both of my daughters love this tradition! After two books (usually by 8:30) it's lights out, never give in even once on lights out right after books. Now we never get any grumbling when its time to go to bed because they know they are going to get to read two books. My seven year old now reads them to me, yet the tradition continues. They love it so much that sometimes we use the threat that if they don't behave/go to bed right now, whatever, they won't get to read two books before bed. It is the worst possible punishment they could imagine, even worse than grounding or taking away TV time. Not to mention the fact that now both of my girls absolutely LOVE reading, they each get to pick out one book a night.

If you havent already had her on a regimine, it is a lot harder to change, but when my girls were that age, they went to bed at 8-8:30 religiously, and got up for school at 7am. It'll take some time to switch her clock around to this. The best thing to do is start calming techniques around 7pm - bath, quiet movie, book reading, etc. Dim the lights and activity in the house so she doesn't think she's missing out on something. Limit late night activities to Friday and Saturday. It might be easier on you to start this process with your younger one now as well. Not only will you have less of a fight on your hands come school, you'll have more of the evening to pamper yourself a little :}

Kids need 8 to 9 hours of sleep a night if not more. I have a 14 year old that his bedtime is 9 pm cuz he goes hard all day and needs his sleep. at that age we started at 7:30 pm and we would get a bath and then spend time reading and then kiss prayers and bed. It may take you awhile to get her in that routine but stick to your guns and it will work out.
T

I have a 5 year old son that doesn't get much sleep he does better with 3 to 4 hours sleep and goes all day. I talked to his doctor and said that if he isn't cranky and can pay attention and learn things there is nothing to worry about. He just has different sleeping habits than the other kids. My 2 year old on the other hand if he doesn't get at least 6 hours he is a major crabby patty and will go until it is bedtime. I have learned with the two year old he can't take a nap or he will not sleep at night. Good luck on finding something that works.

Don't let her sleep in. Take her out of bed. Have something for her to do. Like going to the store. Or Dora or a game or something that will get her interested. She is not going to go to bed early if she stays up late. Does she take a nap? If so cut it out for awhile and then that should change things too. I know that my 2 year old goes to sleep a lot better on nights when she has been challenged during the and if not no nap. H. that helps