Getting them to go to sleep

I have a 5yr old and no matter what we do we just cant get him to .go to sleep earlier. He goes to bed at 8pm now, but still even now at 920pm hes still making awake noises. More often than not he will be in his bed chatting to himself etc which is ok i suppose, but hes really difficult to wake in the morning some times and by the end of the week of late to bed and up for school he starts getting really overtired.......which of course creates a little monster

We try putting him to bed earlier and are always going up and making sure he is in bed and telling him to close his eyes and go to sleep...........but besides giving him something that knocks him out i dont know how we can physcially make him go to sleep.

I have been giving him his dinner earlier also so his blood sugar levels had time to drop back down again by bed time............just not sure what if anything we can do to get to actually go to sleep

Valium in a glass of milk at bedtime.

(Yes it's a bad taste joke - my BF is currently having similar issues with 8y.o. and we were brain storming today - this was the only thing that we thought might actually work to get her to sleep before 11pm)

LOL - ive heard phenergan works.......

Hes always been a bit of a night owl and if he didnt get overtired and unreasonable and evil in the evenings it wouldnt be such a drama but even about 530pm hes complaining about being really tired..........I wonder if i could put some relaxation music in his room and get him to listen out for the birds and water etc so hes concentrating on that and get his imagination to switch off...........I have that stuff on my ipod but not would rather have it going on a stereo that way he cant take earplugs out etc..........will try ipod first and see how i go

Cool thanks..........will have to def try something like this, just need to find the money now.....my PPL has just ended and i dont want to get a job.....

i too am having problems getting my older 2 to sleep they are 4.5yrs and 3.5yrs.
the get really hyperactive at night which i know is them doing there best to fight sleep but they end up going to sleep very late and ds1 is also hard to wake in the mornings.
im not one for routine but looks like if i want my evenings back to myself thats what im gonna have to do.

i know when i was little i had problems settling to sleep straight away it felt like id lay there awake for ages b4 drifting off. i once stayed up late to watch a movie and i was forcing myself to watch the movie when i finally went to bed my head hit the pillow and i was out like a light from then on i didnt have problems getting to sleep.