How can I help my 10 year old DD to sleep?

[ThighsTheLimit]

DD has always been a pretty light sleeper, and was a wanderer, coming into my bed at night until the age of 4ish.

For the last 3 weeks or so, she has been waking between 2 and 4 every night and cannot get back to sleep. She seems terrified - she has nightmare about all sorts - horrific weather, ghosts, etc etc.
She comes into my room and I send her back. Then she comes with a different story - headache or tummy ache. I send her back.
Then she puts the light on, then off, then asks for an extra blanket - all the time crying and saying she wants to sleep.

Naturally her behaviour during the day is now affected. She can't sit still, is unable to concentrate and is very cheeky and agressive. This is so out of character for her. She is an amazing pupil at school normally and pretty well behaved, so I'm positive it is all related to the lack of sleep.

As far as I can make out, she is popular at school and not having any bullying problems or struggling with the work.

My GP has ruled out anything physically wrong with her ( re headaches, stomach aches), but isn't very helpful with suggestions as to what I can try to help her sleep.

Does anyone know of any homeopathic or herbal remedies which might work?
Any tried and tested get to sleep solutions??

Please? We are all exhausted :(

I would just let her come into bed with you for a while. She's obviouslygot into q pattern of waking and once you think you can't get back to sleep you can't, if ou seewhatbI mean. Have a couple of cuddly nights to break the pattern - everyone will cat he up on sleep as well!

Thanks for replying seeker. I think that's what I'm going to have to do. She was sent home from school today feeling sick. It is sheer exhaustion!
She is sound asleep for now. I ran her a bath with lavender, then a mug of hot chocolate.
We'll see how tonight goes.
Anyone else have suggestions?

Hi. My ds2 (11) has had big sleep problems over then last few years due to anxiety. We have tried a few meditation CDs and they seem to work. The one he likes at the moment is called Enchanted Meditations for kids by Christiane Kerr.

If you could put her back to bed with that cd on it might help. My dd1 also uses it as she struggles to sleep sometimes. My ds has more of a problem getting to sleep to start with than waking up, although he does have night terrors quite frequently.

A friend suggested we try herbal remedies, but I was reluctant to have my ds think taking a pill would help - even if just for placebo effect, I didn't like the connection.

I used to have terrible trouble getting to sleep when I was a child. Get her to try the following things:

1. Turn her pillow and quilt over to get the cooler side if she's been lying in bed a while.
2. From her feet working up through her leg muscles and arms and finally hands get her to tense and relax each muscle group for a few seconds at a time whilst saying to herself "feet go to sleep" etc. Sounds crazy but works a treat if she's a bit tense.
3. Get her to imagine she's on an adventure, maybe on a boat floating down a river, I still use this now.

Hope this helps I know how distressing it is not being able to sleep at that age.

My oldest sometimes struggles to sleep. I bought a MP3 player and a pillow speaker. He listens to music to fall asleep when he's having a problem, not too often in his case. You could try loading one with soothing music or a meditation type thingy...