3.5 year old tired but wont go to sleep at night!

Hi Ladies,

I hope someone might have some suggestions...

Our 3.5 year old daughter is very tired come bedtime at 7.00pm but she can't seem to switch off and go to sleep.

Every evening we follow the same evening routine every night that we have done since she was born - dinner around 5.00pm, bath and teeth around 6.00pm, two stories in bed, go to the toilet, kisses & cuddles then lights out by 7.00pm. So she's winding down over this time and everything is nice and calm up until this point.

But once the lights go out she gets straight up and starts to muck around including lots of trips out of her bedroom. More often than not it is 8.30pm or 9.00pm before she finally falls asleep.

For example - we had her Kindergarten Christmas Party on Friday and she literally did not stop running for two hours straight. She was physically exhausted and all the parents were joking that their kids were going to pass out when they go home. Except our girl was still awake at 9.00pm just mucking round. She doesn't have a lot of toys etc in her room but she talks or sings and keeps coming out of her room.

She is very aware that we expect her to stay in her bed and in her bedroom but she just can't seem to help herself. We very calmly take her back to her room and tuck her in but after several times or an hour we start to get a little cross with her upon which she gets very emotional because she is so tired. We sometimes put a toddler gate up across her door to keep her in her room which she hates but she just carries on the same behaviour in her room until she passes out. (She is also very loud when she gets upset and her 1 year old sister is sleeping in the room next to her).

She attends Kindy four mornings a week, is a big/healthy eater and gets plenty of outside play and fresh air during the afternoons and weekends - all the normal things that usually tire children out and send them to sleep. She hasn't had a day sleep since she was around 2 years old. She has always been an amazing night sleeper (slept through from 5 weeks and we've never had any problems since).

I realise that it is very light at night until around 9.00pm but she does have black out curtains in her room to minimise this.

I've run this past a lot of my friends with children the same age but no one else seems to be having this issue. With plenty of beach play, swimming, playground, running around etc their kids are falling asleep before their heads hit the pillows.

The late time that she finally falls asleep means that she is only getting around 9 hours of sleep which I just don't feel is sufficient.

Phew! That was pretty long! Sorry about that :) Any suggestions on how to help her settle to sleep at night would be so appreciated. Thank you so much in advance x

Thank you so much for your kind response and suggestions :) Sounds like it might be a 3 year old thing and gentle perseverance might be best (as it is with most things :)

We chat a lot about what is expected of her at bedtime and she is so visibly happy with herself when we tell her how proud we are of her but this also makes her excited and a bit silly. Everything seems to just bounce off her at this time. Warnings etc don't seem to register at all until we end up cross with her and she gets emotional and cries because she is so tired. Her brain seems to be working 100 miles an hour at the moment (some of the things she comes out with!?!) so while she is physically tired, I wonder if her brain won't let her rest. Its a pity the Wonder Weeks doesn't cover 3 year olds as she followed I very closely when she was a baby.

I've read about the Tart Cherry Juice which sounded really interesting with the serotonin and the melatonin. I might try adding that in to the bed time routine to help things along.

I'm sure day light saving hours don't help - it seems unusually light at 9.00pm most nights - and that would make sense with the melatonin/Tart Cherry Juice thing.

I'll let you know how things progress. Thank you so much again for taking the time to reply x