Hi Tiz,
I have one of those kids who needs sleep but fights it every way. In fact, the more tired that he becomes, the harder it is for him to settle down and go to sleep. He is 8, with his ninth birthday approaching this summer. He seems to need about 10.5 hours of sleep per night. We have a very strict and fixed bedtime routine, and any deviation from that leads to problems. We just this weekend experienced the ramifications of this by letting him stay up to 9 pm on Friday and Saturday night. We could not get him to sleep before 10 pm on Sunday night. He spent two whole hours staring at the dark ceiling.
The odd thing about my little guy is that, if he gets shortchanged on his sleep, he begins to wake up earlier and earlier in the morning. You would think that he would just add some extra sleep time by sleeping in for a change. No chance! It is almost as if when he becomes very tired, he can't get into a deep, restful sleep. Sleep can act like a reset button for the brain, so maybe it makes sense that if he gets exhausted he actually sleeps less and less. This weekend, when he went to bed an hour later, he woke up at 6:15 am on Saturday morning and 5:45 am on Sunday morning. Talk about sleep deprivation!
I don't know if anything about my child would apply to any other child. He seems to be a very unique individual. But I thought that I would post this and see if it sounds like your child as well. We start his bedtime routine at the absurdly early hour of 6:45 pm. He reads quietly in his room for about 45 minutes, including getting his jammies on and brushing his teeth. I then have 30 minutes of snuggle time with him with lights out. This allows him to talk about his day, or any philosophical issues that are weighing on his mind. It is amazing how much he calms down when snuggled next to a warm body who is yawning loudly.
At 8 pm we kiss him goodnight and close the door. He is generally asleep by 8:30pm and sleeps until nearly 7am.
Last night I knew that he was exhausted, even though every sign that he was giving me was that he was wound up and hyper. He had a small dip in energy levels around 7pm and I pounced on it, so to speak. I put him to bed by 7:20 pm, before he could catch a second wind. He feel asleep quickly and slept for 12 straight hours last night.
Weird, totally backwards, and completely foreign when compared to any other kid. That's my boy!!
