8 year old started waking at night!

[crazycountess]

Hi all, I am new her and could really do with some advice. My DD aged 8.5 has started waking in the night and is unable to settle. She has been an excellent heavy sleeper all her life but for the past week has been waking 2-5 hours after initially falling asleep and is then in and out of our room constantly. When I sit with her she seems to fall asleep but I can tell from her breathing she is not in a deep sleep and sure enough she will run back into our room shortly after I return to bed.
She is not ill (other than working herself into a state about going to sleep), she is in excellent health and eating normally.
I have quizzed her about anything bothering her and it would seem there are no problems at school and she hasn't watched anything that would disturb her.
There are no issues or problems going on at home either.
I would not be so worried only it is so very out of character and I'm wondering if it is a deficiency of some description (I am prone to low iron). I would be very grateful for any advice or shared experiences!

[sherbetpips]

She is fine but you need to stop being so nice. It's no different than with a baby if she can be awake and have you with her then why not. Everyone goes through periods of wakefulness but you need to be careful not to encourage it. Threats didn't work with my ds but rewards did, I.e. no wake ups or shouting for mummy for three days on the run will get you a new magazine/toy, etc. good luck!

[softyoda]

Hi. I am also new on here but felt I had to reply as I had exact same thing when my daughter was similar age. She was always an amazing sleeper, went to bed with no trouble at all. Used to go to bed at 7pm, read until 7.30 and then lights out. Out of the blue she started not being able to get to sleep and just boomeranged up and down stairs for hours. This went on for months, most nights! She wasn't scared of anything but would just get in a real state about not being able to get to sleep. She felt tired but just couldn't drop off and would then start worrying about not sleeping, starting a vicious circle. I could see as bedtime was approaching that she was starting to worry before she even got into bed. After trying everything from getting cross, bribary, sitting with her, having her fall asleep in our bed, us going to bed at same time things were no better. After lots of time on internet and talking to friends it transpires that this is really common and possibly linked to hormones. We tackled it by giving her a later bed time and giving her half an hour on her own after her sibling went to bed (they had always gone to bed at same time before). Now she really looks forward to that half an hour without her sister and bedtimes are much better. It sometimes still takes her a while before she drops off but we dont have the boomerang thing anymore. It took a long time for us to adjust to her being up that much later but it worked for us. Hope this helps in some way as I really do feel your pain.