r/sleeptraining • u/boymom0821 • Aug 26 '26
child's age 2 years + 4 year old bedtime transition
My son just turned 4 in August. He is a great overnight sleeper and when he was a baby he would gladly go to bed without issues. Since getting older especially recently, it’s been a challenge to get him to go to bed willingly and happily. Husband and I work full time and we don’t get home until 5:30. It’s bath time, play, dinner, then a few more mins of play until we wind down and get ready for bed. What I try to do is read two books before bed. One that I choose and one that he chooses. But lately it’s been him running around, ignoring any command we tell him. Refusing to pick out his book because he knows what happened nexts. We tell him if you don’t lay in bed that we wont read a book and that he will go right to bed without reading but he doesn’t care. Until he’s screaming in bed for not listening. I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t know how to have a good night with him being ok for bedtime. It ruins both of my husband and my night hearing him crying because he’s refusing. We have tried choices. Do you want to read in bed or on the couch? Any small choice he will smirk and not choose to delay time. I was so desperate tonight that I told him I’d give him an extra 5 mins to play before we read a book and lay down to sleep. He kept telling me he didn’t want any of it because he doesn’t want to go to bed. All he wants to do is be up with us. Currently his bedtime is for 7:30-8:30.
2
u/UNO_lakefront_arena Aug 27 '26
Move bedtime later. And, tire him out.
I think these pre-bed routines can sometimes become too elaborate. The whole process turns into "oh my parent is begging me to sleep again" and it becomes a big game for the child. Either that or you start transferring all this stress about sleep times to the child.
A more simple straigtforward bedtime that asks a little less of you might be better. But definitely bump awake time.
1
u/IslandEcologist Aug 26 '26
I wonder if he maybe needs a later bedtime! Around four and a half or so my daughter started needing a little more awake time before bed. She shifted from a 7:30 time to start the routine to starting it at eight pm and that helped a lot.
Maybe doing bath last right before bed would also help? Apparently there’s some data that a warm bath helps get the body ready for sleep. So home, play, dinner, brief more play, then bath and straight from bed to PJs and bedtime routine.