What do your kids do to settle at night?

DD1 (3yrs) and DD2 (nearly 2) have ALWAYS been restless sleepers. Even as babies they took ages to settle. Now i'm finding it even hard as they are getting older it's taking them 2 - 3 hours to fall asleep in bed.
We have always had the same routines for them as they have grown ie. dinner, bath, teeth, story, bed and that usually works. The bed part is still taking over 2 hours though. Its like thier brains just can't switch off. DD1 twists and turns everywhere and DD2 is like the energiser bunny - just can't sit/lay still.
I have tried giving them books to lay in bed and read, sitting in the bedroom until the settle (i was there utnil midnight one night), massage, natural remedies eg. Brauer sleep and calm, warm milk, soft music and i still can't get them to switch off.
Tonight i have resorted to letting them watch a movie on the ipad to see if they will help.

doesn anyone have other suggestions of things that can settle them? Its more them switching off. Not so much getting out of bed etc.

Have you tried magnesium spray?

I am actually subbing..
Except I only have one, we can be up til midnight some nights.
If she has a day sleep we are screwed lol..

Sorry im no help :-(

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Have you tried magnesium spray?

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Whats this? I never heard of it....

Subbing as well, DD is still an energiser at 4 and just doesnt have an off switch!

Do they share a room? My DS1 who is 2 use to carry on for hours. He was in a cot, would call out, carry on... Anyway we put him in a big bed and he asked for DS2 who is 1 to sleep in his room, in his old cot and suddenly magic! Maybe sharing may help?

DS takes 2 toys to bed and I hear him playing with them and unwinding until he falls asleep. He loves his toys so knows that he has to stay laying down under the covers or he looses them.
Sometimes (like tonight) that isn't enough and he calls out to me and says he can't sleep. I often go in (I have a bunch of tumblestone crystals, that your DD's might be a bit young yet if you think they will put them in their mouths, give him one or two to hold) and lay with him briefly and tell him to dream about his latest obsession so it could be the beach if we have been on holidays or his aunty that lived away. Tonight I said that he should imagine he is a bird soaring high in the sky above the mountains as that seemed like fun (yes he has a vivid imagination) and that seemed enough to keep his mind occupied to go to sleep.
Goodluck, I use to find it very frustrating when he would take hours to go to sleep.


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'Rescue Sleep' (similar to rescue remedy) has worked really well for DD. lavender is also supposed to be calming and help make you sleepy. I have seen a business making aromatherapy play dough (let me know if you'd like the details), she always says it makes her sleepy when she is making/packing it!

I add a couple of drops of lavender to DS's bath, that seems to sooth him. He's now 2 and during the day he doesn't sit still, and instead of walking anywhere he runs. Oh the joys of an energiser bunny! I find these days that if he misses his day sleep, he goes to sleep at night fairly quickly. I he has a day sleep, he takes about an hour to an hour and a half to fall asleep, sometimes longer. All I want to do is do my own relaxing after a full day running after him! Don't know if I was of any help....sorry!

I'd steer clear of computers and TVs as much as possible, especially in the afternoon.
DS loves books. He reads stories with daddy before bed. However, he used to take aaaaaages to sleep and was extremely restless and nothing really seemed to help him, but seems to have mostly grown out of it.
Maybe also think about diet? some additives cause wakefulness I think?

im starting to make little sleep boxes its a shoe box with a lid that can be decorated however you like, in the box can be a few different things, like a hand held mirror, a dim torch, a little book or some scrap silky material or whatever your child may like. This is supposed to allow the child something to do instead of lying in bed trying to fall asleep. you can vary the things in the box every other day or week. when the child has had enough they can then roll over and go to sleep. of course the things in the box would vary due to age. i have not tried this myself yet but alot of educators through my family day care are using with day naps and are having success

just an idea ...

:)

DD1 who is 4 has always been very easy. She just needs her (stinky) blankie.

DD2 (19 months) has always been a bit of a nightmare. She's been known to wake up from being asleep if my tummy rumbles if I'm sitting next to her cot. For her, a blankie has never worked. These things seem to help: classical music and something to do with her hands. I haven't found anything she likes to hold after trying lots of things, so I simply hold her hand, sometimes up to 45 mins till she falls asleep. I've actually said to her, "it's OK DD, it's time to switch your brain off now. You can think about all this stuff tomorrow." Funnily enough, that actually worked. Your kids are old enough to understand that concept now, so maybe you could try that on them.

Another thing is to make sure they're getting enough physical exercise or mental stimulation (not TV) during the day. I've spent a morning at kinder with DD1 and they're constantly doing stuff so I can see how she gets so tired on those days. If she's home with me, she's not nearly so stimulated as we've been relying on TV too much lately.

Are they old enough to do visualisations?

A friend of mine gets her kids to "think happy thoughts" when they're in bed, if they can't sleep.

This can range from imagining what they're going to wear the next day, and then imagining going to school, and who they will see, and what they will play or talk about ... or it could be imagining they're in their favourite class (art, sport, etc) and then imagining what they would best like to do, how their friends will respond to that, etc ...

My friend does this too, but in a different way! She imagines that she's in Australian Idol, and she imagines what song she would sing, what she'd wear, and what her choreography would be for the song, etc! Or that she's won Tattslotto, and how she'd spend the money, etc ...

She says it works really well ...

So maybe your kids could have their own version of "thinking happy thoughts"?