Probably going to be a long post so please bear with me. I am at my wits end with my eldest daughter, she's 6 turning 7 in December. I've thought for a while that she might have ADHD and she never ever stops, she's always been difficult and I thought as time goes on and she gets older it would get easier but it's not something she's growing out of. I don't know whether she's just a 'naughty' child or if she's got adhd. She's been fully potty trained (including during the nights, since she was about 3), when she was 4 she started having accidents almost every single night, I started stripping back her juice intake before bed, I made she she went to the toilet about 15mins before bed and then again right before bed, and she will still have an accident, i then tried waking her just before I went to bed to go to the loo and yet she'd still wake up wet. I called the drs who did a urine sample for diabetes which came back clear and they said they wouldn't do anything unless she was still having accidents at the age of 7. She now doesn't have many but about once a month she'll wet the bed, she's had day time accidents because she doesn't go to the toilet when she needs, she'll go when she's absolutely desperate and can't hold any longer even though I tell her every day to go when she first needs.
Bedtime is becoming an absolute nightmare, she shares a room with her younger sister who is 2 and they've shared a room for about a year. The younger goes to bed before her and almost every single night my eldest is waking her up by shoving toys in her face and asking her to play. If she's not waking her up I can hear her walking around the room, singing in her bed, she'll get up and pretend to go to the toilet Atleast 5 times. The other day I changed her bed and she had been painting in her bed and painted all her bedsheets and pillow case and turned it over so I wouldn't see (she's on the top bunk so I can't see much anyway as I'm just a small 5'2). Last night she was talking until about 10 to herself so I went up and told her she really needs to sleep now and I noticed all her wall was wet. I asked her in the morning why her wall was all wet and she said she didn't know, when I said it doesn't get wet by itself she said 'it could have been spit?' To which I asked, did you spit on your wall? And she said yes. She's spat on the walls and rubbed it all in with her fingers which has taken off the paint. I can almost always hear her up until 11pm before I think she nods off. When she's keeping the youngest up she will still wake up at her usual time and be a complete bag of rubbish the next day which means dealing with a crying toddler all day along with my 4 month old baby😠(I only have a 2 bed atm so I can't even separate them as I have the smaller room with the baby).
She cannot sit still, at the dinner table she will get up and dancing around, or she will pick up her food with her hands and start playing with it, she'll crawl under the table and mess around, she'll ping stuff with her fork. When doing her homework she cannot physically sit still and concentrate, she'll be doing parkour off the couches. (She also really needs to focus as her teacher thinks she's dyslexic and told us to focus a lot on her reading which will help her read more fluently). I find it so so hard doing her homework as I cannot get her to concentrate and she never seems to remember anything she's done at school.
She's forgetful. She'll get ready for school and try leave with out her school bag, school shoes on or jacket etc. And she's ALWAYS loosing stuff within the space of 2 seconds.
She cannot keep tidy. (I know that if she is dyslexic this could attribute to this) her room is absolutely always a state, and I don't just mean a little mess, I mean she will EMPTY the cupboard and all the toy boxes and dump them on the floor, the other week she emptied a whole box of hamma beads and started making 'snow' angels in them. I've set her room up so it's easy for her to keep clean, she's got an ikea kallax unit with 8 boxes, and each box is for a different type of thing so a box for her small teddies, a box for her playhouse furniture/people, a crafts box, etc etc. I've told her so many times to play with what she wants and once she's decided she's done to put that away and then get something else out but almost every single night I am going in and it's like a tornado has ripped through her room😅
I'm trying to help her but I just don't know how, my sister is studying medicine and has just done her paediatrician unit and she said she really displays a lot of adhd symptoms and told me to defo speak to the school. I've contacted her teacher and her teacher has been meaning to call me but I've nothing yet.
I feel so guilty thinking there's something and I don't want to label her but I feel like if there is I'd rather know so I know how to help.
Has anyone got any advice?
Thanks in advance