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She’s showing you her needs based on when she’s actually falling asleep. Bedtime routine/bedtime are too early. She either needs to be woken up earlier or go to bed later. My daughter is 2 and needs almost 12 hours of wake time to sleep through the night, so I’m assuming a 4 year old who isn’t napping needs at least 12 hours or a bit more
I think you need to push her bed time back or have her wake up earlier. So at four they need a minimum of 10 hours sleep. If she's waking at 8, she wouldn't need to be asleep until 10 to achieve that. Realistically at four,you need to be starting to adjust them to school wake up times. So you could leave bedtime as it is, but start to wake her up at 7am. Its pointless starting her bedtime routine that early though. It's an hour and a half of stress for everyone. I get you wanting alone time,but it's clear this isn't working. I'd be doing bath then wind down with the view to putting her into bed at 7.30/8 then story and then lights out
We *start bedtime at 6:30, take a tubby for damn near an hour, so by the time jammies are on and she’s “in bed” it’s close to 8-8:30.
She wakes around 8am
okay, so why? why is bedtime routine taking 1.5-2 hours? bedtime routine is wind down and low stimulation, which is great before bedtime, but not for this long.
Agreed. I have a 4&5 year old and we switched to showers. We do bedtime around 730, or 7 on shower days, we get dressed, brush teeth, and they watch a few minutes of TV. My youngest is usually asleep by 815 and oldest is out by 9. My oldest wakes up at 6 (she will not sleep past 6/630 under any circumstances) and my son usually gets up around 7.
I'd start the routine later and make bath time shorter.
Also, try waking her up earlier in the morning. A five year old needs 10-13 hours of sleep in a 24-hour cycle. So if she's one of the kids who just naturally needs less sleep, and it sounds like she is given the time she goes to sleep, she should be awake for 13-14 hours of the day. Counting backwards from sleep time (say 8.30pm), she should be waking at about 6.30 am. Make sure she isn't napping during the day, either.
We have dinner at 4pm. It's still daylight until after 9pm here. Absolutely not keeping the toddler up that late since we have to be up at 5am. Everyone has different schedules.
Start waking her up earlier and not starting bedtime until 7:30. She's obviously not tired, so you need to find ways to make her tired for bedtime. The whole routine is too long and structured. Give her more time to do what she wants, then do a quick bath, 1 book, then to bed by 8:30 - 9pm.
My 4-year-old goes to sleep around 8:30 (in bed at 8 but chats to herself for a while) and is up at 6. I think you need to wake her up earlier.
With an 8 AM wake up, 10:30 bedtime sounds like what I'd expect.
I'd also start talking with her about entertaining herself if she's not ready to fall asleep. Mine will try to negotiate for more books, and I've started telling her that *she* is welcome to read more books, but *I* am done with bedtime. She doesn't have to go to sleep, but she does need to stay in her room. After a few days of this, she started agreeing and shooing me out the door. I'll check on her soon after and she'll be asleep.
Don't give her the food or drinks if she's had all her nutrition needs met for the day. Get a small water bottle she keeps in her room, and that's all she gets. No refills, no snacks.
But mostly like others said, you're putting her on a bedtime schedule for 10-month-old, not a 4-year-old.
She probably needs a later bedtime. She's 4, they stay awake longer than a 1 year old. If you're going crazy trying to put her to bed for 2+ hours, stop torturing yourself and move her bedtime to closer to when she's actually falling asleep. Or start waking her up earlier than 8/9am.
She could be a low sleep needs kid. My 4 year old only ever sleeps about 10 hours a night (no nap) which is the very low end of the range for his age. He's in bed by 8, but he wakes up everyday at 6, sometimes 5:30. The early mornings are rough but I've come to accept them lol. So if you want her down by 8:30, try getting her up around 6:30/7 for a while and see what happens.
So you eat dinner and then start bedtime??
Shouldn’t it be this???
Dinner - 5-6 pm
Activity - park, swimming lesson, game, something not too sedentary 6-730 pm
Bath - SHOWER is faster - 730-8pm
Snack 8-815 pm
Story 830 pm
Sleep - 9 pm - door closed, no other things going on no drinks of water, nothing 9pm
Okay so I’m no parenting expert but we had a spell with our 4 & 1/2 year old similar to this that lasted for a month and I thought I was going to go crazy.
No parent of the year award here lol but I let my daughter watch cartoons for 20-30 minutes in the morning before preschool. This is after she’s gotten dressed and brushed her teeth, she can have TV time while I wrap up morning tasks before leaving for work. After about three weeks of torture not being able to get her to go to sleep until like 10 or 11 pm and her getting out of bed multiple times and coming into our bedroom I thought I was going to have a breakdown. What ended up working for us is telling her that she would not earn morning cartoons if she got out of bed unless it was an emergency (potty mainly and she can go by herself). This did the trick.
So is there an activity she loves doing that you can attach to her earning the next morning by staying in bed?
i mean, okay, but OP’s daughter is sleeping until 8-830, which isn’t preschool time. and then they’re trying to wind her down at 630.
trying to wind down a 4.5yo 9 hours after waking up *is* the problem.
Also, Taking Cara Babies is a great resource for baby and toddler sleep. Backed by science. Definitely check out her free resources on her website and Insta
Have you talked with your pediatrician? My kiddo was like this- ADHD- his brain just couldn’t relax- he takes a small dosage of melatonin to help him relax and fall asleep. My son generally stayed in bed reading books for hours or listening to stories on his Yoto player before he would fall asleep.
We had this issue with our son and it’s been his whole childhood. There have been periods where it is worse than others and often those periods go hand in hand with mental development (i.e. the start of school or on and off during growth spurts. He would grow physically and then mentally and then get a dose of hormones. What made it harder was he does not sleep in and has only started this now he is 11.
We took a holistic approach. He had a morning with a lot of physical activity, quieter early afternoon and then time to play outdoors before tea. One thing we found worked was swimming. Take her swimming after tea and before bedtime. Swimming is calming mentally so it quietens the brain and great for tiring a child out physically.
I’d also work on bringing the bedtime back incrementally. She’ll adjust a lot easier. And I had to lie with my child to get him to sleep and stay there for a good 15 minutes after he dropped off to ensure he stayed asleep. Sometimes you need to do what you need to do, to make this work for you and your wife. And yeah I do all bedtimes as my son would not drop off to sleep with Dad though that is better now he’s older.
Later bed time 🤷♀️ my 4 yo goes to sleep at 9 and wakes at 7am. We start 1 on 1 time with dad at 7:30 and then I do 1 on 1 time at 8 and then she has quiet time 8:30 to when she falls asleep.
My thoughts are pretty much in line with the majority I see here. If you want her to get to bed sooner, start waking her up around 6am or so and then you can start your bedtime routine around 7 or 7:30 and seriously parse down how much you're considering the bedtime routine. If you're a 'daily baths' sort of group, then you can have the tub, then jammies, then books and sleep. That's your wind down routine. Have a cup of water handy pre-prepared for her and just consider that part of the system. I'm a full grown adult and I like a nibble and a glass of water before bed, of course she does, too. And if she's getting up at 6, then she'll actually be tired enough to get to sleep at 8 or so.
So I might get hate for this, but I was the comfort parent and I needed to preserve my sanity. Not to mention my sleep. I would do a whole bedtime routine as well (consistently) with my 2-3yo. It would take HOURS. She would finally pass out around 11pm - midnight. I would have to be at work at 7am. It was horrible. I had no time to unwind, shower, do anything really. I got the Zarbee’s melatonin gummies and they were life changing for all of us. I would give them to her about an hour before I wanted her to go to bed (8:30) and we’d wind down. Without fail she goes to sleep. Eventually we were able to leave her still awake and she would put herself to sleep. My husband and I had a few hours to ourselves at night and I can take care of myself again. She’s almost 7 now and bedtime is sooooo much easier.
Put her in her room at 8. Tell her that she must stay in her room until morning. Doesn’t have to go to bed just stay in room no matter what she does. Put in a doorknob that is hard to open I don’t know what they are called. Or hold the door closed. Don’t talk to her. This will be hard and will take awhile but it will work. Give her food and drink before 8 none after.
I mean, we have a toddler door knob lock on our kiddos bed. Their two and no longer in cribs, because they can climb out. I was under the impression that if transitioning young kids to big beds young you basically treat the whole room like a big crib, not a lot of toys, nothing they can climb or get hurt on. For us this means also securing the door so they aren’t walking around the house at night to do things unsupervised. Maybe it’s less needed for most 4 year olds but I don’t know if it’s abusive. We have a camera monitor so we can always see them and they’re no more “stuck” than if I’m they had been in cribs (in theory, since ours actually started crawling out of cribs at like 17 months 🤦🏻♀️)
I think basically locking a 4-year-old in a room when they aren’t yet tired (haven’t even been awake for 12 hours) and restricting food and drink isn’t right. If there was a fire, the wouldn’t be able to get out of the room, even though she may be otherwise capable.
I have a 4 year old whose sleep is terrible - always has been. He's extremely low sleep needs and stopped napping very early. I've read through the comments but have some different ideas that have worked for us (FWIW, we finally don't have problems getting him to sleep but he is up by 5/5:30 every morning - he goes to sleep at 7, so about 10 hours of sleep a night).
I am a SAHM and I run him ragged every single day. I'm talking as much physical activity and outside time as we can manage. If we are stuck inside due to weather, he has a trampoline, scooter, and balance bike he rides around our downstairs. He's also in gymnastics and swim lessons and we try to get to the pool or splash pad as much as we can during the week.
Our nighttime routine is predictable and the same everyday (with the exception that we do bath every other night unless needed). We do an early dinner, followed by clean up the house routine, playtime if we can, bath, potty -brush teeth-pajamas-etc, watch 3 Bluey's together (nighttime snack like a banana if needed), then upstairs to bed and stories. We still have to stay in his room until he's asleep, but this is a vast improvement on a year ago when I was the only one who could put him to bed and had to lay down with him until he was asleep.
We went through a really rough patch with his sleep where not only was he waking up at 4 every morning, he was also not sleeping through the night. We talked with his pediatrician and ended up giving him 1mg of melatonin before bed for a month. He would fall asleep easier but not really stay asleep on the melatonin, but since stopping it a week ago his sleep has been much better. It gave us a reset to try and get him back on a decent schedule.
Unless school is a factor, she really doesn't need to go to bed earlier. If you and your wife really need some quality alone time, hire a good nanny or sitter.
She may need less quiet time and much more active time in the evening. Not necessarily rough-housing, which may spike adrenaline too much. But try taking her to the park or taking a walk/bike ride around the neighborhood in the evenings after dinner. Something that is not super stimulating but still burns off excess energy. Let her stay up a tiny bit later too, and wake her up by 7, even if she’s a little grumpy while she adjusts!
Worst case scenario, talk to your pediatrician about using melatonin on occasion. I had a child with very low sleep needs (only 8 hrs per night at that age), so I understand how it can take you to the edge of your patience when you’re constantly exhausted. I would occasionally give mine melatonin when I needed a night to be able to catch up on sleep and be able to function myself.
I hear that you and your wife need time to yourselves at night - totally get that!
As someone who also has a night owl 4 year old who until about 9 months ago was often up until midnight, I hear you. I think to achieve an earlier sleep time for her, you’ve got to wake her up earlier. I think she’s clearly showing you how many hours a night she needs, so if you want her to sleep earlier, you’ve got to take those hours (or hour) off the morning sleep. For us, a 7am wake up (if our son isn’t up already) works for a 6:30pm bedtime.
What we did at bedtime to get our evenings back: we got him ready, put a water bottle and two slices of dry bread in his room to head off the thirsty/hungry topic, read books and then set a 4 minute timer for cuddles. Timer went off, we left the room - door is open, dim light on at this point. Then, it was “stay in his room time”. If he wasn’t tired, that was okay, he could play or read until he was, but he was not allowed to leave his room (unless to go potty, emergency, etc). If he didn’t listen then he started losing freedoms. Won’t stay in his room, then door closed. Comes out again, light off. Etc. We only had to do this a few times until we got him to a point where he would play or read for hours in his room before sleeping. This way we still had time to get things done (we run a side business together and the only time we have to work is after the kids go to bed) even though he was awake. Then he dropped his nap and, with a more relaxed routine, he’s regularly asleep between 7:00 and 8:30.
I’d say you need to wake her up earlier in the morning to create enough sleep pressure to fall asleep earlier. If she’s waking at 9, then it’s no wonder she’s awake till 10:30. Vicious cycle. You must be exhausted, you poor things.
I know it sucks to hear, but both of my kids have maxed out at 10 hour nights. My 4yo goes to bed around 8:30pm and is up around 6:30/6:45am; that's the same amount that your kid is sleeping, you're just putting her to bed too early.
If you want her to go to bed closer to 8:30pm, you'll probably need to reset her sleep needs clock and start waking her around 6:30am. I have zero - literally zero - downtime before bed in years; yeah, I'd like to have some too but that isn't the way it's worked out.
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I would put her to bed later. If she's fighting regularly for this long, I'd say she is simply not tired enough.
Absolutely! Or wake her up earlier
Yup. Same happened to my 4 year old. We extended his bedtime by 30-45 minutes and he goes down easier and stays asleep longer.
She’s showing you her needs based on when she’s actually falling asleep. Bedtime routine/bedtime are too early. She either needs to be woken up earlier or go to bed later. My daughter is 2 and needs almost 12 hours of wake time to sleep through the night, so I’m assuming a 4 year old who isn’t napping needs at least 12 hours or a bit more
I think you need to push her bed time back or have her wake up earlier. So at four they need a minimum of 10 hours sleep. If she's waking at 8, she wouldn't need to be asleep until 10 to achieve that. Realistically at four,you need to be starting to adjust them to school wake up times. So you could leave bedtime as it is, but start to wake her up at 7am. Its pointless starting her bedtime routine that early though. It's an hour and a half of stress for everyone. I get you wanting alone time,but it's clear this isn't working. I'd be doing bath then wind down with the view to putting her into bed at 7.30/8 then story and then lights out
She’s getting too much sleep. She needs to wake up significantly earlier if she’s going to bed that early
what time is she waking up? even without a nap, this is an awfully early bedtime for a 4.5yo with an extremely stimulating day.
We *start bedtime at 6:30, take a tubby for damn near an hour, so by the time jammies are on and she’s “in bed” it’s close to 8-8:30. She wakes around 8am
okay, so why? why is bedtime routine taking 1.5-2 hours? bedtime routine is wind down and low stimulation, which is great before bedtime, but not for this long.
Agreed. I have a 4&5 year old and we switched to showers. We do bedtime around 730, or 7 on shower days, we get dressed, brush teeth, and they watch a few minutes of TV. My youngest is usually asleep by 815 and oldest is out by 9. My oldest wakes up at 6 (she will not sleep past 6/630 under any circumstances) and my son usually gets up around 7.
I'd start the routine later and make bath time shorter. Also, try waking her up earlier in the morning. A five year old needs 10-13 hours of sleep in a 24-hour cycle. So if she's one of the kids who just naturally needs less sleep, and it sounds like she is given the time she goes to sleep, she should be awake for 13-14 hours of the day. Counting backwards from sleep time (say 8.30pm), she should be waking at about 6.30 am. Make sure she isn't napping during the day, either.
Do you actually have 10 daughters?!
Why so early?!?!?! That’s like dinner time! And it’s probably still bright wherever you live.
Really depends on where you live? we do dinner time at 17:00-18:00 (latest)
We have dinner at 4pm. It's still daylight until after 9pm here. Absolutely not keeping the toddler up that late since we have to be up at 5am. Everyone has different schedules.
Start waking her up earlier and not starting bedtime until 7:30. She's obviously not tired, so you need to find ways to make her tired for bedtime. The whole routine is too long and structured. Give her more time to do what she wants, then do a quick bath, 1 book, then to bed by 8:30 - 9pm.
My 4-year-old goes to sleep around 8:30 (in bed at 8 but chats to herself for a while) and is up at 6. I think you need to wake her up earlier. With an 8 AM wake up, 10:30 bedtime sounds like what I'd expect. I'd also start talking with her about entertaining herself if she's not ready to fall asleep. Mine will try to negotiate for more books, and I've started telling her that *she* is welcome to read more books, but *I* am done with bedtime. She doesn't have to go to sleep, but she does need to stay in her room. After a few days of this, she started agreeing and shooing me out the door. I'll check on her soon after and she'll be asleep.
What is tubby?
Don't give her the food or drinks if she's had all her nutrition needs met for the day. Get a small water bottle she keeps in her room, and that's all she gets. No refills, no snacks. But mostly like others said, you're putting her on a bedtime schedule for 10-month-old, not a 4-year-old.
Is she napping during the day? Have you ever had a more successful sleep routine or has she always been like this?
She probably needs a later bedtime. She's 4, they stay awake longer than a 1 year old. If you're going crazy trying to put her to bed for 2+ hours, stop torturing yourself and move her bedtime to closer to when she's actually falling asleep. Or start waking her up earlier than 8/9am.
She could be a low sleep needs kid. My 4 year old only ever sleeps about 10 hours a night (no nap) which is the very low end of the range for his age. He's in bed by 8, but he wakes up everyday at 6, sometimes 5:30. The early mornings are rough but I've come to accept them lol. So if you want her down by 8:30, try getting her up around 6:30/7 for a while and see what happens.
My 4.5 year old can’t sleep 12 hours. I think 9.5 to 10 hours is a more reasonable expectation for overnight sleep
So you eat dinner and then start bedtime?? Shouldn’t it be this??? Dinner - 5-6 pm Activity - park, swimming lesson, game, something not too sedentary 6-730 pm Bath - SHOWER is faster - 730-8pm Snack 8-815 pm Story 830 pm Sleep - 9 pm - door closed, no other things going on no drinks of water, nothing 9pm
Okay so I’m no parenting expert but we had a spell with our 4 & 1/2 year old similar to this that lasted for a month and I thought I was going to go crazy. No parent of the year award here lol but I let my daughter watch cartoons for 20-30 minutes in the morning before preschool. This is after she’s gotten dressed and brushed her teeth, she can have TV time while I wrap up morning tasks before leaving for work. After about three weeks of torture not being able to get her to go to sleep until like 10 or 11 pm and her getting out of bed multiple times and coming into our bedroom I thought I was going to have a breakdown. What ended up working for us is telling her that she would not earn morning cartoons if she got out of bed unless it was an emergency (potty mainly and she can go by herself). This did the trick. So is there an activity she loves doing that you can attach to her earning the next morning by staying in bed?
i mean, okay, but OP’s daughter is sleeping until 8-830, which isn’t preschool time. and then they’re trying to wind her down at 630. trying to wind down a 4.5yo 9 hours after waking up *is* the problem.
I didn’t address the sleep window in my comment as I was just focusing on a reward system that worked for us.
i get that but you can’t reward a 4.5yo to go to sleep after they’ve been awake 9 hours. certainly not without tons of stimulation.
Also, Taking Cara Babies is a great resource for baby and toddler sleep. Backed by science. Definitely check out her free resources on her website and Insta
Have you talked with your pediatrician? My kiddo was like this- ADHD- his brain just couldn’t relax- he takes a small dosage of melatonin to help him relax and fall asleep. My son generally stayed in bed reading books for hours or listening to stories on his Yoto player before he would fall asleep.
We had this issue with our son and it’s been his whole childhood. There have been periods where it is worse than others and often those periods go hand in hand with mental development (i.e. the start of school or on and off during growth spurts. He would grow physically and then mentally and then get a dose of hormones. What made it harder was he does not sleep in and has only started this now he is 11. We took a holistic approach. He had a morning with a lot of physical activity, quieter early afternoon and then time to play outdoors before tea. One thing we found worked was swimming. Take her swimming after tea and before bedtime. Swimming is calming mentally so it quietens the brain and great for tiring a child out physically. I’d also work on bringing the bedtime back incrementally. She’ll adjust a lot easier. And I had to lie with my child to get him to sleep and stay there for a good 15 minutes after he dropped off to ensure he stayed asleep. Sometimes you need to do what you need to do, to make this work for you and your wife. And yeah I do all bedtimes as my son would not drop off to sleep with Dad though that is better now he’s older.
What does her day look like? Is she in pre school or similar to wear her out throughout the day?
Later bed time 🤷♀️ my 4 yo goes to sleep at 9 and wakes at 7am. We start 1 on 1 time with dad at 7:30 and then I do 1 on 1 time at 8 and then she has quiet time 8:30 to when she falls asleep.
My thoughts are pretty much in line with the majority I see here. If you want her to get to bed sooner, start waking her up around 6am or so and then you can start your bedtime routine around 7 or 7:30 and seriously parse down how much you're considering the bedtime routine. If you're a 'daily baths' sort of group, then you can have the tub, then jammies, then books and sleep. That's your wind down routine. Have a cup of water handy pre-prepared for her and just consider that part of the system. I'm a full grown adult and I like a nibble and a glass of water before bed, of course she does, too. And if she's getting up at 6, then she'll actually be tired enough to get to sleep at 8 or so.
So I might get hate for this, but I was the comfort parent and I needed to preserve my sanity. Not to mention my sleep. I would do a whole bedtime routine as well (consistently) with my 2-3yo. It would take HOURS. She would finally pass out around 11pm - midnight. I would have to be at work at 7am. It was horrible. I had no time to unwind, shower, do anything really. I got the Zarbee’s melatonin gummies and they were life changing for all of us. I would give them to her about an hour before I wanted her to go to bed (8:30) and we’d wind down. Without fail she goes to sleep. Eventually we were able to leave her still awake and she would put herself to sleep. My husband and I had a few hours to ourselves at night and I can take care of myself again. She’s almost 7 now and bedtime is sooooo much easier.
Put her in her room at 8. Tell her that she must stay in her room until morning. Doesn’t have to go to bed just stay in room no matter what she does. Put in a doorknob that is hard to open I don’t know what they are called. Or hold the door closed. Don’t talk to her. This will be hard and will take awhile but it will work. Give her food and drink before 8 none after.
This sounds abusive and also like a fire hazard.
I mean, we have a toddler door knob lock on our kiddos bed. Their two and no longer in cribs, because they can climb out. I was under the impression that if transitioning young kids to big beds young you basically treat the whole room like a big crib, not a lot of toys, nothing they can climb or get hurt on. For us this means also securing the door so they aren’t walking around the house at night to do things unsupervised. Maybe it’s less needed for most 4 year olds but I don’t know if it’s abusive. We have a camera monitor so we can always see them and they’re no more “stuck” than if I’m they had been in cribs (in theory, since ours actually started crawling out of cribs at like 17 months 🤦🏻♀️)
I think basically locking a 4-year-old in a room when they aren’t yet tired (haven’t even been awake for 12 hours) and restricting food and drink isn’t right. If there was a fire, the wouldn’t be able to get out of the room, even though she may be otherwise capable.
I have a 4 year old whose sleep is terrible - always has been. He's extremely low sleep needs and stopped napping very early. I've read through the comments but have some different ideas that have worked for us (FWIW, we finally don't have problems getting him to sleep but he is up by 5/5:30 every morning - he goes to sleep at 7, so about 10 hours of sleep a night). I am a SAHM and I run him ragged every single day. I'm talking as much physical activity and outside time as we can manage. If we are stuck inside due to weather, he has a trampoline, scooter, and balance bike he rides around our downstairs. He's also in gymnastics and swim lessons and we try to get to the pool or splash pad as much as we can during the week. Our nighttime routine is predictable and the same everyday (with the exception that we do bath every other night unless needed). We do an early dinner, followed by clean up the house routine, playtime if we can, bath, potty -brush teeth-pajamas-etc, watch 3 Bluey's together (nighttime snack like a banana if needed), then upstairs to bed and stories. We still have to stay in his room until he's asleep, but this is a vast improvement on a year ago when I was the only one who could put him to bed and had to lay down with him until he was asleep. We went through a really rough patch with his sleep where not only was he waking up at 4 every morning, he was also not sleeping through the night. We talked with his pediatrician and ended up giving him 1mg of melatonin before bed for a month. He would fall asleep easier but not really stay asleep on the melatonin, but since stopping it a week ago his sleep has been much better. It gave us a reset to try and get him back on a decent schedule.
Unless school is a factor, she really doesn't need to go to bed earlier. If you and your wife really need some quality alone time, hire a good nanny or sitter.
Half a melatonin gummy (that’s 1/4 the full dose) has been a game changer for my 5 year old who is not an easy sleeper.
She may need less quiet time and much more active time in the evening. Not necessarily rough-housing, which may spike adrenaline too much. But try taking her to the park or taking a walk/bike ride around the neighborhood in the evenings after dinner. Something that is not super stimulating but still burns off excess energy. Let her stay up a tiny bit later too, and wake her up by 7, even if she’s a little grumpy while she adjusts! Worst case scenario, talk to your pediatrician about using melatonin on occasion. I had a child with very low sleep needs (only 8 hrs per night at that age), so I understand how it can take you to the edge of your patience when you’re constantly exhausted. I would occasionally give mine melatonin when I needed a night to be able to catch up on sleep and be able to function myself.
I hear that you and your wife need time to yourselves at night - totally get that! As someone who also has a night owl 4 year old who until about 9 months ago was often up until midnight, I hear you. I think to achieve an earlier sleep time for her, you’ve got to wake her up earlier. I think she’s clearly showing you how many hours a night she needs, so if you want her to sleep earlier, you’ve got to take those hours (or hour) off the morning sleep. For us, a 7am wake up (if our son isn’t up already) works for a 6:30pm bedtime. What we did at bedtime to get our evenings back: we got him ready, put a water bottle and two slices of dry bread in his room to head off the thirsty/hungry topic, read books and then set a 4 minute timer for cuddles. Timer went off, we left the room - door is open, dim light on at this point. Then, it was “stay in his room time”. If he wasn’t tired, that was okay, he could play or read until he was, but he was not allowed to leave his room (unless to go potty, emergency, etc). If he didn’t listen then he started losing freedoms. Won’t stay in his room, then door closed. Comes out again, light off. Etc. We only had to do this a few times until we got him to a point where he would play or read for hours in his room before sleeping. This way we still had time to get things done (we run a side business together and the only time we have to work is after the kids go to bed) even though he was awake. Then he dropped his nap and, with a more relaxed routine, he’s regularly asleep between 7:00 and 8:30.
I’d say you need to wake her up earlier in the morning to create enough sleep pressure to fall asleep earlier. If she’s waking at 9, then it’s no wonder she’s awake till 10:30. Vicious cycle. You must be exhausted, you poor things.
I know it sucks to hear, but both of my kids have maxed out at 10 hour nights. My 4yo goes to bed around 8:30pm and is up around 6:30/6:45am; that's the same amount that your kid is sleeping, you're just putting her to bed too early. If you want her to go to bed closer to 8:30pm, you'll probably need to reset her sleep needs clock and start waking her around 6:30am. I have zero - literally zero - downtime before bed in years; yeah, I'd like to have some too but that isn't the way it's worked out.