Insomnia - What are Your Non-Medication Tips?

[damepeanutbutter]

My DD (17) occasionally suffers from fitful sleep. She says she isn't worrying about anything in particular but my guess is that she has a lot on her plate with uni applications, exams etc etc.

What do you do (or your teens do) to help you/them get to sleep without the aid of medication? We really do not want to resort to pills and potions prescribed by GP or bought off the shelf. I am hoping that the wise tribe of Mumsnet Mums would have the answer......

I do have the answer, but it involves herbal medicine which involves capsules and teas, so I don't know if you'd be interested.

Mindfulness cd - with earplugs to listen to when she wakes up?

I am terrible for having my mind buzzing at night and for waking up in the early hours and failing to get back to sleep.

After my toddler never sleeping through ever, I got wise so that even when he did start (sometimes) sleeping longer, i was still all awake

Oops hits post. Stupid touch screen

Anyway things I have found to help are:

Exercise before bed in the evening. This seems to really help me sleep soundly.

Mindfulness / hypnosis CD sounds a good idea. I used to use the counting backwards technique from a CD to help drop off to sleep.

I did also try warm milk when I was pregnant. Not sure if it really helped our if it was just getting out of bed and back in!

Cut out caffeine.
Avoid looking at screens for an hour or so before bed.
Reflexology.
Yoga.
Chamomile tea.

A few drops of lavender oil on the pillow.
Kalms Night tablets.
Reading (no TV late).
Vervain tea (tastes pants).

When feeling extra stressed I also take Kalms in the daytime too.

Sleepeaze type tablets, not herbal and they're behind the counter. Also a phone app of rain on a car roof, it's my favourite noise and makes me feel all cosy

Some lovely tips here, thank you. I will look at itunes for a mindfulness CD, or perhaps that app of rain for DD. I always find that staring at my computer at work makes me dozy. I wish I could transfer that feeling to bedtime sometimes!

She doesn't drink tea or coffee (drinks herbal), but she does spent hours on her ipad in bed and that cannot be helpful, although not sure if you can tell a 17 year old anything like 'put your ipad away at 9pm' as they always know better.

Are Kalms night tablets herbal?

Thank you