DD (8) does not sleep...... any advice?

[NellyTheElephant]

DD1 is about to turn 8. As a baby she was a super sleeper - slept 7pm to 7am - 12 hrs a night from 8 weeks old and continued to do so until she was around 4.

Then gradually she started to go to sleep later and later. She's a good girl and thankfully loves reading, but her inability to go to sleep leaves her exhausted, grumpy and disruptive much of the time. Her face is often pinched with bags under her eyes, some days she just looks grey and exhausted. I put her younger siblings to bed 7pm ish and then DD1 goes up for a bath at 8pm ish and lights out at 9pm ish. But after lights out she doesn't sleep, just lies there tossing and turning for hours. She is never asleep when I go to bed. Obviously she will often turn her lights back on and keep reading as lying in bed in the dark not sleeping is not a great deal of fun, I understand that but I feel we need to try and impose lights out in the vain hope that she might sleep.

Once she is asleep she is a heavy, deep sleeper, the problem seems to be that however exhausted she is she can't drop off. Over the holidays she has been getting up a fair bit later - 8 / 8.30ish and she would definitely sleep longer than that in the mornings if she could but with 2 younger ones the general noise and bustle wakes her. This makes it clear to me that she does need the sleep, she just can't seem to let go and fall asleep at night

What should I do? Should I just let her leave her light on and read herself out? Should she see a doctor? We have tried everything over the years: music / story CDs / relaxation techniques / relaxation CDs / herbal remedies / aromatherapy. Any other thoughts?

I'm posting here rather than in the sleep section as that seems mainly to relate to baby sleep issues.

My ds1 (7) has had similar problems since about 5 years old. The sleep issues nearly always coincide with school! I think it is partly winding down from learning. Its almost like he's over stimulated and is reliving/ relearning everything he learned that day. He also gets worse the more tired he is, so it becomes a vicious circle so for eg. at the end of a term he will be sleeping less and less and getting more and more tired. It generally also gets worse when he is having trouble at school, so it is clearly a stress thing. This is what works for us:

• Getting the balance between a later bedtime and not too late. He has lights out about 8.30 and we tend to stay in with him till 9 or so.
• We spend a lot of time with him, either myself or my husband, for a good hour before bed. In this time, we read to him and chat a lot after lights out. There is strictly no chatting after 9pm though. If he is still up around 20 mins after we've left the room, he is allowed downstairs. This virtually never happens.

When he is fairly relaxed he will sleep from 9-7. When he is not so relaxed he will start early waking too.

I would say you need to have some boundaries on lights out/ on and monitor it. For example, she needs to try and sleep for 30 mins from 9.00-9.30. If not, read till 10 and try again. Also make sure she is really, really relaxed before, and that can just include a lot of talking to get stuff out of her system, even if it's just telling you what she's learned that day, or what lunchtime was like etc.

My DD also just turned 8 and is exactly the same. It drives me nuts! I can't stand to see her pale little face with big dark circles under her eyes. But she just won't switch off at bedtime. I thought this was a problem since birth because although she does sleep well when she does go off, we did that thing they tell you not to do with babies which is rock them to sleep. So I thought we'd robbed her of the ability to go to sleep herself. :(
We aim for bed by 8, lights out 8.30 but most nights she will lie awake for at least an hour, and with bedtimes slipping during the holidays she has come down asking for a warm milk at well after 10.
I am also at a loss and we too have tried most of those things you say. The one thing I think we will try now is I have bought a book called What to Do When You Dread Your Bed. I think my DD is actively refusing to sleep. She won't lie still with her eyes closed, she buggers about and keeps her mind buzzing. So I think this book is about reprogramming her brain by using strict routines to signal it is bedtime. It will be a pain because it advocates beginning the bedtime routine an hour before lights out, but it will be worth it if she can learn to switch off at lights out.
I am pinning all my hopes on it because if it doesn't work then I guess I will just have to accept that I have a small insomniac on my hands. :(
BTW, others have suggested to me that creative children with busy minds might feel able to switch off better if they keep a diary.
Good luck to you both!

PS. It is a time consuming bedtime routine, but also lovely 'quality time'. I have 4yr old twins who go to sleep around 7.30-8pm so we have the space after they are in bed to do this with him.

My dd age 6 is like this. I have found a combination of lots of lavender oil and lullaby cd works.....but not always. She is often banging around for hours, and I feel desperate too. She is a real owl, best in the evening, but can sleep for ever in the mornings.

I also found imposing a lights out helps as does starting wind down routine very early.

Forget bed until 8.30 or lights out until 9.30.

Round here scouts and gym means many 8+ DCs don't get home until 9pm.

There comes a point when they aren't babies anymore. Eight is often about it.

DF is very strict at getting her DD up to bed and quiet so her little brother sleeps, but she accepts that she then reads.

Sorry if I haven't read carefully enough. Speaking as a life long insomniac who has procreated to create even more of my kind:

How much exercise does she get? Everyone sleeps well if they are physically tired out enough.

And does she get any caffeine after about 2pm, even chocolate? Chocolate drink is enough to keep me awake at night.

Otherwise, I'd move her lights out time back to 10pm, make sure the difference between awake time and sleep time more striking. Lying awake in bed bored witless is no good for insomniacs. We just get better at not falling asleep no matter how dark & quiet & late it is.

See, I really struggle with this later bedtimes thing. Everything I've read suggests children of her age still need 11 hours sleep and the way she looks when she sleeps less would support this. I think going past the tired time into hyper does us no favours at all and to my mind a 10pm bedtime is completely inappropriate for an 8 yr old - even a 10 yr old! I've let bedtimes drift towards 9 because it's the holidays but there is no way I would allow that on a school night.
She is a very active girl. She literally cannot sit or stand still. I mean, she just can't. The only way she will not move is if she is playing games on a DS or watching the goggle box. But I try not to allow those things an hour before bed. In term time she does swimming, dancing and Beavers on three nights a week and dancing on a Saturday. So she does get quite a lot of exercise.
She doesn't drink fizzy drinks or tea or coffee but we do permit some chocolate in the evenings after dinner and sometimes she has a hot chocolate in the afternoon.

n/c?

The only half-decently tested/proven effective insomnia advice says that lying in bed bored witless for hours is not helpful, long term. The modern advice is get up & do something dull like a jigsaw puzzle or washing up in a different room (off top of my head) until a certain state of sleepiness is reached. If insomniac doesn't fall asleep again in 10 minutes or so they are supposed to get up again (I think all this is loony & I would literally never sleep at all if I followed that advice, but it is proven effective with some).

It's a lifelong thing for her, probably, she will have to learn to manage it in her own way.

My parents coped by letting me stay up until 11pm most nights, from the age of 5yo, and I slept later in holidays to make up any deficit. I don't think they could have done anything else any better. I never saw my insomnia as a problem until I had children & couldn't just sleep when I felt I wanted to.

I think part of the problem is that I am usually a head-hits-the-pillow type so although I do sometimes have sleep issues, I struggle to understand how she can not just go to sleep!
So clearly I'm not helping with that situation.
I know there are some kids who seem to manage on less hours but she genuinely looks awful when she doesn't get enough sleep, plus she tends to fall over more, is much more emotional and prone to tears, struggles to pay attention and retain information which is obviously a problem for her school work, and takes longer to fight off colds and things. So my feeling is I need to persevere with the strict bedtimes, but I do take your point about lying there for hours. :(

She sounds like me as a child. These days it still takes me a while to get off but CBT made things so much better. Things that help (ed) were:

-exercise (lots of it - at least 1 hr per day plus 2-3 per day at weekends)

-not watching tv just before getting into bed - reading is an ideal way to wind down

-not going to bed too early (cause you just lie there)

-THE IMPORTANT ONE -not getting up too late (because then your sleep pattern drifts and you can't get to sleep the next night).

What worked for me (this is an understatement - it changed my life) was the getting up bit. If you want to try it, then try putting her to bed at 9pm but letting her read til 9.30pm. Then get her up 6.30ish (she may well not wish to do this). The idea is that by restricting her morning sleep she will find it easier to drop off at night. Its hard and you'd have to try for a couple of weeks to see if it works for her.

HTH

Had a particularly hard time getting ds1 off to sleep last night as school started today...it is pretty labour intensive and I do envy people who can just say 'night, night' and switch the lights off. But in the end it is worth it, as he was asleep by 9.15pm but I had to lie with him and help him to be calm. (Actually going to sleep myself seems to be the best way to get him to sleep!). We play this game where he gets 5 chances before I leave the room. We go through the rules first which is fun eg. no talking, no biting, no pulling hair, no pinching, no whispering, no wriggling, no getting out of bed etc. etc. and then he gets the 5 chances. MsMommy has your dd been assessed for ADHD?

No MerryM, she's not been assessed.
I thin BarbarianM is right. She hasn't been getting up until 9 so tomorrow's 7.20 will be a real wrench, but it will help to reset her and she will find it easier to get to sleep once the school routine starts up.

Lots of good advice already.

Def agree no TV or screens (laptops/DS/iPads etc) for at least an hour bedtime.

Also, even if diet is healthy it is still conceivable that there may be a deficiency of key minerals/nutrients/vits as sadly the soil our food is grown in isn't as rich in the good stuff as it once was.

Sleep issues can commonly occur with deficiencies of B12 and also magnesium.

Both are v simply remedied.

B12 supplement is best absorbed sub-lingually. Better You makes a spray called B12 Boost. It is great for adults and children. For kids, 1 spray a day., under the tongue. It tastes lovely so is easy to get kids to take it. Have at breakfast. Do not have in afternoon or evening.

Magnesium supplement is best absorbed through skin. Magnesium Oil by Better You (I think it's called original - dint get the goodnight spray as that's not suitable for kids). Start with a spray or two per leg last thing in evening. Build up gradually to 4 or 5 sprays per leg. If any tingling then wash off and try less or try a diluted spray. If deficient you can get tingling sensation until your levels get better.

Other thing on the food front is reduce the sugar intake. It's everywhere so you might need to become a label-reading addict!

Hope things improve soon. Sleep so important for health and development so it's great you're addressing it.

Best wishes.

P.s. better you available in holland and Barrett (and online from them with no postage charge). H and B not normally somewhere I rate but Better You is v good

Thank you Sipper. Whilst I suspect you are actually hitting me up with an advert for Better You, this is actually very useful information. We don't eat meat and DD is not keen on salmon, rarely eats cereal (as opposed to her good sleeping sister), except more often during term time (when she sleeps better). So I will investigate the B12 thing. On the other hand I doubt she has a magnesium deficiency. But thanks for this. :)

Sorry if someone has already mentioned this, but is her bedroom too warm? Mine can't sleep properly if their rooms are much warmer than 17 degrees and I can't either.

I think you need to adjust her body clock. What I mean is forbid bedtime until 9 or 10pm, even if she's yawning, she's not allowed to hit the pillow until then. Then you MUST wake her up at 6.30-7. No messing around or snoozing till 8am, the idea is for three night or so she goes to bed exhausted and then can't make up for it in the morning. This will shock her body clock into a different pattern. It will be tough, but it should work.

Not an ad for better you! [Sad] Just info on what I've found to be good and thought might be of use . Good point re b12 if you are vegetarian. I'm sure I've read something about prevalence of mag deficiency. If I find I'll add it in later.

Oops, that sad was meant to be a face not just the word!!!

Also, on the supplements front, my health professional DH looks at everything available and goes through it with a fine tooth comb, reading all research, tons of info, and so I am v fortunate to get info about what is best and which makes of which things deliver the best absorbed version etc.

What Barleysugar said is supposed to work, but the main thing is you have to follow it very strictly. It means no lie ins ever for the parent, too. Keeping to very strict consistent routine in rest of the day is also supposed to help, too (like exact same meal and snack times and exercise times; I would slit my wrists first).

You've had brilliant advice but just wanted to also suggest looking at her iron levels. As she doesn't eat meat this could be affecting her sleep. A simple blood test will tell and then iron syrup for a while to get her levels up. My ds had very low iron and looked like a ghost with dark rings around his eyes. He also slept fitfully. Hope you get it sorted soon.

Thank you everyone. I feel a bit bad for rather commandeering poor NellytheElephan's OP. Sorry about that. I think her iron levels are probably ok. I know iron deficiency can make you feel tired and lacking energy and that's not really a problem she has, although she does flag a bit some days. Thank you Sipper. Sorry for casting aspersions then! I do appreciate the B12 advice and will investigate that.

Another thought (probably completely irrelevant but worth mentioning) - a girl in my DS's nursery (3.5 years old) was also very restless, wouldn't sleep at night, over-active during the day, they were at their wits end until the doctor did a blood test and diagnosed over-active thyroid. I didn't know they can get thyroid issues this young but now she has been diagnosed, it all makes perfect sense (she is also very skinny despite eating well). Worth looking into?

Thanks for all of the replies (no probs MsM re commandeering post!). Lots of good advice, which I will look into. Her bedroom is freezing (warm duvet though), no TV near bedtime, good diet (eats everything). During term time she is up every morning at 7am. Interesting re thyroid comment though - Dd is v tall and skinny but eats like a horse, maybe I'll look at that and the other supplement suggestions, I'm wondering about iron to be honest as now you mention it she has that 'look' (although unlike MsM's daughter DD1 is not veggie and her favourite food is steak, so maybe not that).

My DD is a very active child (always outdoors, rain or shine, mainly to be found up a tree or mountaineering up haystacks or whatever else she can find that is both dangerous and energy consuming). In the summer months she swam every single day, it didn't make one jot of difference to her sleeping. As a rule she doesn't sit still (even while watching TV will be hopping about), although that rule is broken for reading, I think she really enjoys lying still in bed reading, it's her down time and rest, she just can't move that on to sleep. The upside from all her non sleeping and night time reading is that her school are amazed by her literacy, understanding and expression and she is on their G&T list, but I just can't bear her always being so tired. Often when I go to bed at 11pm ish she is lying in the dark awake and SO tired, just saying how much she wants to sleep (but can't).

I might see what happens if I just leave her to read, I wonder when she would turn her lights out and drop off if I didn't make her (worth a short term experiment anyway I suppose)