-- have an in-bed reading time every night. Lately we've loosened it, but for years Stone went to bed at 8:30/9/9:30 but had thirty minutes to read. The benefit of this is that if the kid gets out of bed excessively, they lose the reading time entirely and go to bed *earlier*, so that may motivate her not to abuse the time so badly. Yet you get to move on to your chores and email at a reasonable time.
-- tie bedtime to behaviour. Have some set action in the morning that is fairly non-invasive, such as dropping a marble in a jar every time she requires intervention. At night, every marble is a minute off her bedtime. (Don't move her sister's bedtime of course.) I use this with Stone today. If he's too surly in the morning, his bedtime gets docked 15 minutes. He's old enough to manage it pretty well these days.
As for amount of sleep, I don't think that's predictable. Everyone is different, and it changes at different times. Enough sleep this week may not be enough next month, ESPECIALLY for kids. When and how the sleep happens may be an issue too, and there's little you can do about that when school is in.
Good luck! Stick with the rituals I know you already have, make it as consistent as you can, and know that it's a struggle for lots of folks.
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-- have an in-bed reading time every night. Lately we've loosened it, but for years Stone went to bed at 8:30/9/9:30 but had thirty minutes to read. The benefit of this is that if the kid gets out of bed excessively, they lose the reading time entirely and go to bed *earlier*, so that may motivate her not to abuse the time so badly. Yet you get to move on to your chores and email at a reasonable time.
-- tie bedtime to behaviour. Have some set action in the morning that is fairly non-invasive, such as dropping a marble in a jar every time she requires intervention. At night, every marble is a minute off her bedtime. (Don't move her sister's bedtime of course.) I use this with Stone today. If he's too surly in the morning, his bedtime gets docked 15 minutes. He's old enough to manage it pretty well these days.
As for amount of sleep, I don't think that's predictable. Everyone is different, and it changes at different times. Enough sleep this week may not be enough next month, ESPECIALLY for kids. When and how the sleep happens may be an issue too, and there's little you can do about that when school is in.
Good luck! Stick with the rituals I know you already have, make it as consistent as you can, and know that it's a struggle for lots of folks.
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