bedtime!

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I have a question about bedtime. We find that our seven year old with Asperger's /adhd is hard to wind down for bed like most aspies and is easily distracted by toys in his room and will put them in his bed and play with them for hours when he is supposed to be sleeping.

My DP has Asperger's/ adhd too and I know that when he started studying he had to remove a computer game from his computer otherwise he would get distracted. I'm wondering if this is the same situation with the seven year old, is it just too tempting to have toys in the room?

We do not have room to have a toy room but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions? Would it be mean to use a lockable cupboard to pop his toys in so its not a distraction? I feel like its sort of more mean the way it is all these lovely toys there tempting him but he is unable to play with them? He is also very tired all the time because he stays up so late playing with toys. Any suggestions will be welcomed. Please no criticism I'm just feeling out this idea and trying to do my best !

Our son is still in a crib so our situation isn't exactly the same, but it is hard to wind him down at night. We do quiet time before bed where we remove all electronic toys. We do have a toy cupboard with a lock on it, otherwise he will just pull out everything he owns and get more worked up trying to play with everything at once. During quiet time at night we dim the lights and lie in our bed reading with a blanket, or doing some other quiet activity. It helps set the tone, he knows bedtime is coming and the dim lighting makes him a bit sleepy. Some kind of bedtime routine might help you. I do think removing stimulating toys a bit before bedtime and only providing one or two quieter toys can really help. If my son had free acess to his toys at night I know he wouldn't sleep either. There's nothing wrong with locking toys away for the night if it helps keep your child from staying up all night. Everyone functions better with a good nights sleep.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it either.

When I was a kid I had a toy chest. (no lock on it.) Do you have one of those?

This is a problem for our son if he stays in his room alone. So, one of us sits with him and rubs his back or just sits in bed with him until he is 'mostly' asleep. Maybe not ideal, since it takes away from time you may want, but when we do this our son falls asleep fairly quickly actually. (And he was NEVER a good sleeper). Because we are with him he doesn't get up. (He is 5) Also, we started using an android app called 'Lightning Bug'. He LOVES it! It's a white noise sleep aid. May be available for ipod too. He chooses all the 'white noise' sounds he wants on my cell phone and then it helps lull him to sleep. His favorites are rain/wind/wolves/chimes.

My son has JUST started being able to fall asleep if I leave him in the room alone. We just leave a computer running a playlist of favorite videos and he falls asleep watching that.

He has never really been into toys, though, so I can't really give advice to the OP...

Sleep is an imperative life function. Locking his toys away so he can do it is not mean.

Transitioning can be hard. My daughter is almost 7. I put her to bed 1/2 hour early and she sits in bed and draws (her "thing"). She has a digital clock and I tell her what time she has to put her drawing away and go to bed. While I helped her with countdowns and reminders initially, she is now able to do this on her own. Literally. If I peek my head in 1 minute later than "time," her drawing stuff is gone and she is laying down. I do not know if this would work for all kids on the spectrum, though. The two things that work in our favor for this is her inclination to follow rules and the fact that she does better with unpleasant situations (like going to bed) if she understands exactly what to expect and perceives that she has some measure of control.

I can tell you what works for us,
DS3 is only allowed to have one stuffed animal toy in bed with him at night. He has an urge to chew so it has some chewies sewn to it. We have a toy closet in the den. Part of our before bed routine is to put all of the toys but one stuffed animal into the toy closet. Then he gets an extra warm bath and we put on PJs. This relaxes him.

The other thing is light. It is the absence of light that causes the body to produce melatonin. So the first thing on our BBR is to turn down the lighting in the entire house. (not completely off but just a lamp at the dimmest setting) We do that about an hour before bedtime.
I personally cannot sleep with ANY light in the room. To the point that I put a towel at the base of the door to block out light from the hallway. So no night light. I lie down in bed with him and stay there until he is sleeping, then go to my own bed.

When my daughter was little going to sleep was a BIG issue. It helped creating a routine: one hour of quite time, then shower, then brushing teeth, then reading, having linden tea (a psyatrist told me it is relaxing) before going to bed, and sleeping with relaxing music playing in the room. She is 12 now and she still drinks linden tea before going to bed and sleeps with relaxing music playing in the room. I stayed with her until she fell sleep because she was afraid of the dark, so she did not try to play, but I think removing the toys is the right way to go. He needs to sleep. Lack of sleep makes them more irritable and they are more distracted, so I fight for my daughter's 8 hours sleep.

thank you everyone for your very helpful replies

my son takes natural sleep aide Melatonin one hour before bedtime, and by the time the hour is up, he is usually ASKING to go to bed, and before I can make it down the stairs he is asleep. Without the Melatonin, it can take him over an hour to unwind and fall asleep.

We also tried using imagery. We told my son to put his brain into "shutdown" mode by "closing all the tabs and windows" and then "hitting the shutdown button" like the computer. This helped us for a bit.