10 year old won’t sleep aaargh!

[Lizardlegs]

I have just left DD sobbing in her bed after hours of her dad and I trying to get her to sleep. We are trying everything: warm baths, warm drinks, 5HTP gummies, the Loona app, the sleep button app, endless reading. And we still can't get her to sleep. It's been going on since the beginning of Y5 and it is honestly destroying all of our lives. I've broken down and left her to cry it out tonight...but she has literally just come back in with me. Any advice or sleep consultant recommendations? DD is normally a lovely friendly girl though very sensitive: and we are having her assessed for dyspraxia soon, as she is showing some signs (I am dyspraxic myself).

I've got a DD who is older but struggles with sleep.

How much exercise is she getting @Lizardlegs? My DD has a sport that she enjoys and it's pretty intense. On the nights that she's done her activity she literally crashes out after eating.

What sort of time does she eventually fall asleep?
Is she getting wound up in the evening about having to try and sleep and is going to bed already stressing and upset or does the upset just build throughout the night?

@PritiPatelsMaker she does get a lot of exercise on school days as she plays Netball etc and generally has an active lifestyle- we don’t have a car and walk everywhere. But we could try doing some more planning exercise, that’s for sure. Thanks for the suggestion!

If she isn’t sleepy, would she be happy to lie awake and listen to an audiobook, @Lizardlegs? It sounds as if the whole situation has become overwhelmingly stressful for you both, and you need to break out of the cycle. If you take the stress out of the situation by telling her she doesn’t have to go to sleep, if she isn’t sleepy, she just needs to stay quietly in her room, reading or listening to an audiobook, until she feels ready to sleep, might that help?

@Sandysandwich she generally makes it to proper sleep by midnight, so she does tend to get 7-8 hours of sleep in total. The main upset comes when she wakes up right after drifting off: she’s prone to getting stuck in bad dreams then. She’s kind of half asleep and furious when that happens, and it takes a lot to snap her out of that mode. I think it may be related to night terrors?

Would she sleep better if she was in your room? A mattress in the corner for a week or so? Might make her less anxious and this isn't as unusual as it might sound.

Hi, my 10 year old dd has suddenly started struggling to get to sleep...often lying awake for 2 hours or more. Usual bed time is around 8pm, permitted to read but no screen time. She's becoming upset that she can't get sleep. I'm.exhausted too!
She also complains of a 'funny tummy' can't explain how it feels though?

You would be better off starting your own thread, as this one is a year old and anyone new coming in is likely to reply to the original post rather than yours

What time is she going to bed? You might have an idea that if she's 10 she needs to be going at x time, but if she's simply not tired it's not going to work. Try a later bedtime. Sounds completely counterintuitive but worked for dd2 when she went through similar.

@JLM1979 how is she now?