The Child With No Off Switch

Most households get quieter after dinner. Yours gets louder. By half past seven your child is on the back of the sofa, narrating something at volume, and every request to calm down produces a brief pause followed by an even bigger surge.

Acceleration is a tiredness signal

In adults, fatigue looks like slowing down. In many children — particularly those with ADHD or high sensory-seeking needs — it looks like the opposite. As regulatory capacity drops, behaviour becomes faster, louder and more physical. The child is not resisting bedtime. Their brakes have gone.

Output before input

The single most effective change most families make is adding ten minutes of heavy physical work about ninety minutes before bed. Proprioceptive input — the deep pressure sense from muscles and joints — is one of the most reliable ways to bring arousal down.

• Pushing hard against a wall for ten seconds, repeated.
• Carrying the laundry basket or shopping bags upstairs.
• Bear walks or crab walks down the hallway.
• Twenty star jumps followed by lying flat under a heavy blanket.
• Squeezing a cushion between the knees while listening to a story.

The sequence matters more than the content

1. 01
   7:00 — Heavy work

   Ten minutes, non-negotiable, done with you where possible.

2. 02
   7:20 — Food

   Protein-based snack. Hunger masquerades as chaos more often than parents realise.

3. 03
   7:40 — Water and dim

   Bath or shower, lights down. Falling body temperature after warm water aids sleep onset.

4. 04
   8:00 — One quiet thing

   Story, audio, drawing. Same activity every night.

5. 05
   8:20 — Lights out with company

   Presence rather than conversation. Talking restarts the engine.

When to look further

If a child regularly takes more than an hour to fall asleep, snores heavily, wakes unrefreshed, or is describing racing thoughts at bedtime, that is worth raising with your GP. Sleep-disordered breathing and anxiety both present as evening hyperactivity in children.