dd7 extreme tiredness & poor concentration

[smudge74]

Hello

My dd7 gets super tired, more so than any other child I know.

If she misses sleep or has an especially exhausting weekend she finds it very difficult to get back on top of life and struggles with her school days for a long long time afterwrds.
For example, one or two late nights at the end of the Easter break has made her very tired during the day and now I know she will struggle to get back to normal. Its likely to effect her managing to cope with the school day for the rest of this half term.

She goes to bed at 8pm, sleeps solidly, has a good appetite for healthy food, vitamain supplements and excercises.

Her teacher says her comcentration and focus is poor and that it is holding her back.

What can it be? What more can I do?

Any help or ideas gratefully received escpecially from anyone who has come out of the other side of a similar situation.

Thank you!

Being tired can affect concentration and focus. Have you taken her to the GP to make sure she's not anaemic? Does she snore? How well does she sleep? If she's rolling around a lot or waking frequently then it won't be 'good' sleep, IYSWIM. I think you need to pop her to her GP to make sure it isn't anything medical.

How old is she?

Worth checking with the GP and asking for blood tests maybe?

I do have a close friend who was not very strong all through her childhood and tbh still isn't - she has to manage her workload very closely and loses weight at the drop of a hat. Is it possible that she's actually exercising a bit too much for her constitution?
[disclaimer; as you can probably tell I'm NOT any kind of expert]

Is she weeing a lot?
Losing weight?
Thirsty?

These are signs of T1 diabetes.
Just for you to know, not to scare you.

Go to GPs and request some blood tests

My son was acting similar- turned out he had chronic vit D levels and mild anaemia

I think I will make a GP appointment.

She doesnt snore. She seems to sleep pretty soundly though Im not sure about the rolling around thing. I think you are right about a trip to the GP. She has always been this way and I thought it was something she would grow out of. However, it seems to be a problem that is not going away and now that her school work seems to be affected I am getting more concerned.

She is very slim and does wee a lot. Not particularly thirsty though...

Really appreciating your input and support everyone -thank you!!

I'd lay off the exercise to see if this helps as well. I know that it's healthy and good, but if she's a sensitive butterfly and it's exhausting her so that she can't concentrate at school then it's not the right thing to do.

Does she often look pale? Blue/purple tinge to her lips?

Snoring indicates adenoids which can cause sleep apnea, hence why I asked.

Lay off until she's been checked out properly, I mean.

You should be able to rule out T1 diabetes very quickly with a simple blood glucose test your GP can do for you in minutes.

Also, any history of gluten allergy in your family? Is she frequently run down? Bowel problems.

Exhaustion can be difficult to diagnose as sooooo many things can cause it.

Lots of good thoughts here guys.

I've booked an appointment at the GP and since your input I wont feel I'm making a fuss about nothing.

Thank you!

I've been to the GP who has ordered the following blood tests:

Ferratin (Iron)
Vitamin D
Renal Profile (Kidneys)
Thyroid Profile

Thanks for all your support.
Lets see what happens!

Hoping all is well

Bit of a different suggestion to what everyone else has mentioned, but is there any way she could be dyslexic? I ask only because what you describe (and provided of course nothing comes up from the blood tests) is very similar to how I would have described my own dd1 about 3 years ago. It used to really concern me at the time and I just oculdn't believe how we just had to drag her out of bed when all the other Mums were completely about early starts!

Anyway - they did some screening at school (in Yr3) and in turns out she is moderately dyslexic. So, the tiredness is completely valid because she was working twiceashard as everyone else to keep up. In other words, she was still in top sets for most things and aside from her poor spelling, no-one had had previous cause to think there was anything wrong.

3 years later, dd1 at 10 is still is bed at 8 every night, sleeps in until 9am on weekends andis still hit badly by a late night during the week.

Anyway, it might not apply to you at all, but if the test results are all clear and there's nothing else, it might be worth looking into.

So, the test results came back normal.

Hummph. I should probably be pleased but I was secretly hoping it might be an easy fix like an iron deficiency that I could fix easily and would be followed by her being full of beans each morning and shooting to the top of the class!

So HandbagAddiction, your post provides food for thought. Thank you! I need to mull things over and I may begin another thread in the not too distant future.
(I am especially intrigued by your esperience seems so similar to ours. DD7 is pretty average in her acheivements at school so they dont have any particular concerns as far as Im aware. If you have any thoughts on where to go from here then a PM or post here would be much appreciated.)

Hi, I will come back to you with a few thoughts on this - but likely to be tomorrow evening as i have some urgent work related stuff i need to get done tonight......

ds1 is like this (7 years) but down to his hypermobility - in the same way handbags dd is working twice as hard, we know ds's body is working hard so he is physically exhausted at the end of the day - worse on PE days obviously
He also has food intollerances which can affect mood and tireness as well as physical symptoms