Night times

[Dinky]

My 5 y/o stepson has never ever been a sleeper. He will lay (still and quiet) in his bed for up to two hours before he falls asleep, its a fact of life. He is so well behaved that he never gets punished for it (my OH tried the punishment route for him 2 years ago and it never worked). We believe that it could be insomnia.
Recently, he has started doing things out of the norm, calling down once or twice and opening his bedroom door. We always pull his door over and lights are always switched off to help him to sleep. We seemed to stop the calling down pretty quick but we are struggling with the door issue. We did have 10 nights where he didnt do it so on saturday I bought him an app on the ipad that he has asked for afor ages and also a little toy car that he asked for. He is clever enough to know that good boys get good things. When he opens his door, he is punished for it. He doesnt get attention for doing it, we just pull his door completely closed (which he hates) and if the following day he asked for things like a go on the ipad/wii, sweets etc, he always gets a no and he understands why......
I dont know how to tackle this, he gets so much praise and so many good things and treats, and is almost spoiled when he is a good boy, but he just refuses to keep his door closed over. He cant give us a reason why he does it either. if he did, we could tackle it....HELP!!!

 

[TashaWink]

Why do you want him to keep the door shut? I personally would just leave the door how he puts it. I slept with the door fully open as a kid and in my sisters house the only doors are on the bathroom! Maybe he just wants more light in his room...I hated the dark as a kid.

 

[JJ Mum]

I agree , I was scared of the dark, maybee as he is getting older he is thinking about things more and finds himself a bit scared of the dark. If you really want the door pulled to, could he have one of those plug night lights, (not enougth light for him to be naughty or want to look at books) but something reassuring).
some of them act like a light sensor, so at dusk it comes on and dawn it goes off so you don't have to remember to switch it off ever!

 

[Dinky]

We have my SIL and niece living with us at the moment and he has admitted himself that he likes his door open so he can hear us talking and hear the tele. He is definitely not a child who is scared of the dark as he asks us to turn off the hallway light if we forget! He genuinely is a child who struggles to fall asleep within 2 hours of being in bed and I feel he is just trying to entertain himself while struggling to sleep. He hates noise in the house at night and often asks us to keep the washing machine off or turn the tele down but all of a sudden he wants to hear the noises!
We're not being cruel to him by closing his door over, we are simply doing what always has been done!