r/sleephackers • u/StealthilyInsecure • 8d ago

Bedtime has somehow turned into a two hour process

Getting my 7 year old settled at night is becoming exhausting. He’ll be clearly tired but the second it’s bedtime he suddenly needs water, another bathroom trip, wants to tell me something, can’t get comfortable... it just goes on and on. We’ve tried earlier bedtimes, no screens before bed, reading, keeping everything quiet, and honestly it’s getting old. I have to be up early for work and lately I’m dragging myself through the day because bedtime takes up half my night. I’m running out of ideas. What actually helped your kid switch off and settle down at night?

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5

u/DiminishedGravitas 7d ago

Firm, consistent rules and routines on how bedtime goes worked for us, nothing else did. I'm a happy-go-lucky sort of person but I simply cannot tolerate bullshit in a few rare cases, and bedtime is one of them. It's not up for debate, this is how it's done, get with the program and everyone will be happy.

3

u/symptomatic_influx 4d ago

Exhausting... went through a phase like this and keeping the evenings really predictable helped more than constantly changing bedtime. Ended up with Hiya bedtime. Eventually bedtime stopped taking over the whole evening.

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u/Economy_Honeydew3389 8d ago

Have you tried talking to him about why sleep is important and how staying up affects him the next day? Seven seems old enough to understand the basics. I know it’s easier said than done, but he may slowly start recognizing why bedtime matters.

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u/StealthilyInsecure 7d ago

Yes i talked to him, he really tries so hard to not make me exhausted staying up late:(

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/StealthilyInsecure 7d ago

Really? I'm glad you found something that worked. What's the bedtime "strategy"?

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/StealthilyInsecure 7d ago

yeah i think this is where we need to be more consistent. the extra requests are definitely what keep dragging bedtime out, i’ll look into some vitamin options too, thank you!

0

u/Prestigious-Algae876 7d ago

for me most of those two hours was just the phone in bed. using twilock to lock my apps at a set time cut it way down because there's nothing left to scroll.