I'm a Sleep Scientist

[Goodnightythen]

I specialised in neurodevelopmental conditions and the importance of sleep in our children's brain development. I worked a lot with children with Autism as well as other frontal lobe related conditions such as ADHD, FASD, ED, ODD, PD, etc.
I don't do much work in sleep labs anymore but AMA!

What's the best way to get a 3 year old to fall asleep in their own bed?

I have always been a night owl, and much prefer going to bed most nights at about 1-2am. I am usually up for 7/730am for work and seem to cope well enough, but as I am getting older and more concerned that poor sleep might be contributing to an overall poor lifestyle, is it easy to change to going to sleep earlier, and for longer?

I dont need the no screens, warm bath, relaxing time, smooth radio etc (I think/hope 🤣)!

Thank you ☺️

Oh interesting! Thanks for this. As parent of a hard to sleep child I'm really interested in learning more about this subject. I've picked a few things up, interested in your views.

First up, and I'm sure you hear a lot. Do you believe sleep training that involves leaving a baby 6m old up to cry for periods to be damaging?

Secondly I'm interested in your opinion about the evolution of 8hrs sleep block and the older pattern of first and second sleep, I suppose as a question, is that known about, and true?

Do sleep walkers / talkers need more sleep than someone who doesn’t? I assume so as they aren’t truly resting when asleep?

Are there things to look out for in infant/toddler sleep that can indicate possible neurodivergence?

What advice would you give parents of autistic children when they don't sleep well (getting to sleep, staying asleep).

I suspect this question might come up a lot. You would need to identify the reason they are not sleeping in their bed in the first place: anxious of the dark, sleep onset delay, latency, night terrors, anxious about other things that happened during the day, attachment, or for example just good old FOMO. Once you identify the reason(s) you can then start to pull together interventions based on your child's needs.

How do I get my toddler to stay asleep? There are nights when he's awake from around 11.30pm until the next day when he will nap for around 40 minutes at 9am-ish. He has global developmental delay, has epilepsy, suspected sleep apnoea and is blind. I am on my knees with exhaustion some days. Getting him to sleep is easy, getting him to stay asleep is nigh on impossible. (We tried melatonin, it made no difference). I must be missing something, somewhere.

What is the link (if any) between sleep patterns and children with ND conditions?
My DH has diagnosed ADHD, depression and anxiety, and is most probably autistic. He has crap sleep hygiene, stays up too late, and never feels rested. Could sleep all weekend if he had the choice.

Thanks in advance, really interesting topic.

I have suffered from nightmares/persistent unpleasant dreams almost my whole life. As a result, it doesn’t really matter how long I sleep for, as I never feel properly rested. They are worse when I’m stressed but never go away.

Is there anyone who can help me? Happy to go private if needed, but I don’t want to waste my time.

I wake up at the same time every morning - between 3.20-3.36am (then desperately attempt to get back to sleep before getting up for work at 6am). What is the internal clock that’s doing that - how does it know time.

When I wake up, it’s like I haven’t been to sleep (like anaesthetic I would say) & I don’t remember a thing - no noise, no waking up, nothing. Also feel like my heart is hardly beating.

With this in mind, how likely am I to die in my sleep?!

There is such a thing as 'morningness' and 'eveningness' meaning you can naturally just prefer to be a certain way depending on how your body clock reacts to circadian rhythms. Sounds like you are more of an evening person. Yes it is possible to delay/ change your circadian rhythm with a lot of effort but its not pretty - we would usually say set your bedtime a lot later than usual and then go back 15-20 minutes every day to reset. So, day 1: 3am; day 2: 2.40am; etc. It does definitely help to have less light in the evening as our brains are very accustomed to 'light' meaning 'we must be awake'.

Why do i go to sleep like a light, then wake up in the early hours and nooo hope of going off again? I've tried every supplement, herbal pills, meditation, going to bed later, sleep sounds. Some work, but only temporarily. Sometimes i am horrifically anxious and negative, but sometimes im just 'neutral' but lying there very much awake.

My nearly 6yo DS has to wear pull up pants to bed and they're always wet in the morning. When I was trying to encourage him to get out of bed to do a wee in the night, he said "mummy, I don't know how to wake up when I need a wee. I just wake up in the morning and it's already there". Didn't want to pressure him or make him feel bad so we've just left it. Is there anything I can do to support him, or will it just happen naturally? He sleeps solidly and really heavily (won't wake up for NYE fireworks, thunder etc). He does have autism and adhd.

That sensation when you're almost asleep, and then you feel a dropping sensation and are jolted awake, what is that?!!! What is my brain doing?

Ooh I’d be so grateful if you could answer my question.

Just for background, I have two DC and both have had/do have split nights. With DC1 they stopped around 16m and with DC2 it’s still going on. Both seemed to need less daytime sleep otherwise they would wake at night for hours.

Why do they do this instead of just waking early or going to bed later? It seems like an unusual sleep problem. Why do both my DC do this? I’d be really interested to know! Thanks so much!

Marking

What's the most interesting (to you) case you've dealt with?

Any advice on getting ND children to sleep alone? Eldest is 8 and will wake at 3am if he is alone - he is scared something will happen to him if he is alone. Its very difficult as youngest is 4 and requires constant supervision so needs someone with her too - she wakes after 5.5 hours of sleep 😴 Can't be in 2 places at once!

Also live request here, I put my nearly 9yo daughter to bed at 9pm, which I believe is age appropriate. But she can't get to sleep easily. She says she's not tired. But looks tired. She's always been like this really and wanting a later bedtime. However I also can't get her up in the morning. I'm the week I wake her at 7:15/30. I let her sleep in today until nearly 9! So I don't think I should let her stay up later. But equally if she can't sleep I end up in and out as she calls me repeatedly, which I hate. Can you confirm I shouldn't let her stay up, because she can't get up?

My 16 year old son says he dreams in words and not pictures. Is that something you’ve heard of?

He doesn’t feel well-rested in the morning as his brain will not switch off.

Is there anything we can do? He doesn’t have excess screen time and doesn’t play video games at all.

Any advice please?

Sounds like you are going through it, sorry to hear this. Unfortunately this is part of the developmental delay. Its a symbiotic relationship actually, sleep consolidates our development but developmental problems can make things like sleep latency (getting to sleep) much more difficult. BUT there is hope. Don't worry. Sounds like your child has an onset/ latency problem: when we sleep, we sleep in 90-120 minute cycles (less for children) and wake slightly at the end of the cycle. We train ourselves to get back to sleep but children will usually expect the same conditions they had at the first sleep cycle of bedtime - that means, to get back to sleep in subsequent cycles, they expect 'bath, brush teeth, story' etc. So getting him to sleep is easy - what is different in the subsequent attempts? He might be expecting more of the same. I also suspect the apnoea will be disruptive. Is it due to adenoids or tonsils? Getting these checked out may help a lot.

What impact does broken sleep have on kids, long term? My 4.5yo still wakes 1-3x a night for fortified milk (low weight due to food issues, under dietician since 3 months old but they're useless). He's a very clever boy but very sensitive/emotional. Catches absolutely everything going and requires hospitalisation frequently. He wakes only for the 30 seconds required to down his milk/wee, there's no messing around, and he's often only half awake. I don't know how to help him as he's waking from hunger (yes we feed him as much high calorie/fat/protein food as possible, but you can't force him) but won't eat anymore during the day.

His younger sister has recently started sleeping through at 19months (still breastfed, i assume this is why it's taken so long). She's solid as a rock in comparison, never sick, great eater - I have to say this or people think I'm nuts and it's my fault.

Sleep onset latency problem.
We sleep in 90-120 minute cycles which get longer throughout the night. At the end of the cycle, we awaken slightly. You are waking up at the end of (probably) the longer cycle and you haven't trained yourself to fall back asleep like you did with the 'like a light' bit. You have to explore why the first time is 'like a light' and subsequent times are difficult - keep a sleep diary or a diary of your thoughts during your wake times, which you fill in in the morning, to start to answer this question.