Hyperactive child?!

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My DD (4.5) has dropped her naps since she turned 2. When she did occasionally have a nap that would push her bed time past 10 pm.

She is very active, goes to nursery 5 mornings a week, then we do activities in the afternoons (gymnastics, tennis, Stagecoach, play dates). She doesn't seem to be tired and she goes to bed around 9 pm or later.

She has a very long attention span, she can concentrate on a task for ages and she never moves until she finishes something. I.e. we went to see a well know children illustrator about 10 days ago who read books to the children and also gave them a lesson in drawing her book characters. My DD sat there for the whole hour with much older children, drawing and listening attentively to the stories. Also no one at nursery ever mentioned anything about her behaviour, always positive. She is very enthusiastic about all activities and has a go at everything.

I was telling 2 different mums whose children (4 yo) still take naps in the afternoon that my DD never naps and finds it hard to settle for bed and they told me she might be hyperactive?? Surely a hyperactive child would find it hard to sit still, concentrate on things and would have a challenging behaviour? Can anyone relate? Am I missing something?

If I am really interested in something I can concentrate so hard, that I forget to eat or to sleep.
DD is hyperactive without ever showing it on the outside.

DS has ADHD, and not so much hyperactive as able to hyperfocus. So would sit for hours doing something interesting. Something boring and he would fidget and fart around and just earn his label of naughty child. He couldnt sit still on a chair and would always knock his drink over and need a 100 reminders to eat his lunch.

If your DD has no disruptive or attention wandering behaviours, I'd just say lots of energy. DS dropped naps at 2.5 and could stay awake until 8-9 pm. Also very intelligent but untidy to the point of squalor.

Thank you for your reply. No, she has no disruptive behaviour, no one has ever mentioned anything. Always positive feedback, she is apparently very caring and considerate at nursery. She's been going to nursery since she was 23 months. We do find bed times frustrating, but I think she just hates going to bed. She'd rather stay up reading books.

We do know a few children (DD's friends) with more obvious hyperactive behaviour (challenging, disruptive, short attention span), but they don't seem to have sleep issues, even take the odd nap. So I really don't understand DD.

Doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about! Some kids just need less sleep than others. 4yos still napping is quite unusual surely, some will be starting school!

Some kids just don't need as much sleep just like adults. My DS is like yours - well he doesn't sit as nicely but he can go a very long day without seeming tired. But eventually after a few days of this his behavior will deteriorate and that's because of chronic tiredness that he just doesn't show. So if you do start to struggle with her behavior bear in mind to encourage more rest and sleep. But it sounds like you have no problem tbh!

Doesn't sound like she is hyperactive at all.
Just a child who needs less sleep than the average.

From your updates & not sleeping, she sounds so much like my own DD was at that age. She has always been the model pupil all the way through school, but never slept well & she'd go loopy if she ever was given foods with certain additives & she was also very sensitive to sugar, these made her hyperactivity worse. She has ASD, though that didn't become obvious until she was much older. She's pretty amazing still, has done extremely well in her GCSEs & A-levels, & is generally doing really well.

She was also diagnosed with a hereditary form of B12 deficiency & B12 injections treatment for that helped her to sleep much better. I have it too, but didn't know when I was pregnant & as a lactose intolerant vegetarian, made things worse for both of us. A NO overdose during Labour also badly affected us both as it affects vitamin B12. If any of that sounds familiar, the B12 deficiency might be something to look into too

We found a weighted blanked & Epsom salt baths to get magnesium into her & avoiding additives & too much sugar helped a lot, but never fully fixed things.

At what age was she diagnosed and what were the signs that made you go for an assessment?

Once DD falls asleep she sleeps through for about 11 hours, never wakes up unless she needs the toilet which is very rare. It's just the lack of naps (which is fine for this age) and the settling for bed that is frustrating.

DD goes quite hyper on sugar, but her sugar intake was always so very low that I think she is just not used to it, so when she has something quite sugary you'd know.

My son was a bit like this, and still is. I am pretty certain that he is hyperlexic. He learnt the alphabet at 18mths and could spell and read well before 3. He could and still can concentrate for hours and has always been at the lower end of the sleep scale and also dropped his naps early on. He's doing well at school. He's a little one sided (maths v creative writing/art) but has good social skills and great friends. I would ignore comments from others. No one really diagnoses kids with anything under the age of four. Your friends are not experts. Kids are all a bit different in their own wonderful ways.

At what age was she diagnosed and what were the signs that made you go for an assessment?

She isn't actually diagnosed as after her asking for assessment at 14, she was nearly 18 by the time we got through the system properly & she then pulled the plug just as we were finally getting there. She was assessed by our GP who has known her since birth & agrees with ASD & DD scored highly on the AQ10 test, she also saw a psychologist for other things & they picked up on ASD too. By her early teens it had become much more obvious, but with an earlier diagnosis of sensory processing disorder, her school didn't pick up on it as she did exceptionally in with learning & her sensory issues were covered.

Why we went for assessment, we always knew there were some issues with her, but mistakenly hadn't considered ASD as she was miles ahead on all of her milestones & she had other diagnosis to cover sensitivity etc. at 14 she started following a young female autistic YouTuber & she realised that she related so much to things said, that she looked into it more & then came to us to ask us to help her get a diagnosis. Looking into ASD for high functioning girls was a lightbulb moment.