There has been a general consensus for many years that children need more sleep than adults. One only needs to watch "Little House on the Prarie" to know that their children were put to bed a couple hours before the adults. Now, a study from the U.K. confirms that getting enough sleep helps cognitive development in babies and children. Plenty of sleep together with a regular bed time routine apparently gives the developing brain its best chance.
Establishing a bedtime routine for your children will help them get a sound sleep night after night. The added benefit of a routine that is followed during the school week and continued on through the weeked will help immensely in keeping the attention defitcit child calm and at his best. A posted, written routine on the hall wall will end confusion for all children, regardless of any learning disablities a child might have.
The key to getting any child into a routine is to have it written down. Allowing him a small amount of control in his bedtime and/or wakeup time will allow for his own self-regulation. Self-regulation is what we as parents want for ourselves and our children. This is our job as parents to enable our children to be able to function independantly as individuals as they grow up to be well adjusted adults moving through society.
Having a well rested mind each and every school day will help insure your child's best chance for school success. A well rested child, together with a good breakfast, will enable them to be better at paying attention. Focus is what keeps the teachers and school administrators from insisting your child be constantly medicated with mind and mood altering substances.
To calculate the amount of sleep time needed, use the time frame provided at When To Sleep to establish either his wake-up time, alarm time or your own bed time and alarm time. Also, read on this site for new information on the benefits of the sleep cycle as the basis in determining the time usually needed to actually fall asleep, and the actual hours needed for sleep before the alarm goes off the next morning. There is an actual sleep calculator on this site.
After you have determined his sleep time, write this down and place it on a poster board on the wall. Once the sleep time is placed on the wall, the child's schedule can begin to take shape around this most important base time. To determine the time to start his bedtime routine, have your child tell you each task he needs to do in the morning with an arbitrary time allotment (or you may want to time him or her actually doing each activity tonight and in the morning). Place this time allotment above their sleeptime. It is now time to return to whentosleep.com to determine the alarm time using their sleep calculator. Adjustments can be made as time moves on.
Now that you have establised a bedtime, and an alarm time, other tasks you or they want ( i.e. their bedtime routine) to accomplish can be added to their routine. Keeping it written down, and getting into the routine of it will keep parents and children less stressed and less angry. It won't be long before your family is able to go to asleep as easily as on "Little House on the Prarie".