7.5 year old “can’t get to sleep” anxiety.

[CurlyWurly41]

Hi all,
DD has always been a great sleeper (8.30 to 7 ish and rarely wakes up in between).
Just for background, I have never not been there for the kids bedtime (except when I was in hospital having DC2).
One night about 6 weeks ago I had warned her that I might have to work that evening and may not be home for bedtime as we were short staff at work.
As it turned out it was fine and I didn’t have to work but that night she really struggled to sleep and was up and down crying and hyperventilating and panicking about not being able to get to sleep until about 11. I have no doubt that the initial night was triggered by the conversation about me not being there, but the anxiety over not being able to sleep has persisted.
She starts expressing that she is worried she won’t be able to sleep from about an hour before bedtime, and gets more worked up as it gets closer. Sometimes we can distract her or she’ll fall asleep when I’m reading a story but she then often wakes up in the middle of the night saying she can’t get to sleep.
I know everything is a phase but just wondering if anyone has been through anything similar before and how did you help resolve it?
thanks.

Any way of having an audio book/stories she can put on if she wakes up?
My dad always used to say (which helped me a lot!) well if you can't sleep then just rest your eyes and your body, it's as good as sleep. Of course I would usually then fall asleep!

Aw bless her. Our 6yo struggles to get to sleep often, some things that help us:

Headspace sleepcasts from my phone into Bluetooth speaker

No screen time before bed but he reads to us for as long as possible which wears him out

If asked, we will sit upstairs in the next room until he's asleep

5/7 breathing if stressed - in for 5 out for 7

I wonder if worry dolls would help your DD?

Have had the same problem with my dd who is now 9. She's fine now.
What helped was listening to a bedtime story podcast and telling as a pp said that it didn't matter if she couldn't get to sleep, she could just rest.
What did not help was me getting annoyed with her which I did occasionally and now feel bad about.

Yes we've been through this in my anxious daughter (she still is). It got gradually worse and worse to the extent of me sleeping in her room or even her bed just to calm her down! She had full-blown panic attacks, and I was getting no sleep either...Tried a few things to help her calm down, but what worked for us were valerian drops from Holland&Barret. The official advice is not to give to children so you may want to do your own research. They taste horrid, so we put them in a small amount of juice to gulp down in one. The very first time I gave them to her I could tell how they gradually took the edge off the attack. They did not make her sleepy or anything, they just took the stress down one notch which allowed her to calm down. And she then took them every night 30mins before bedtime, and after a few months I gradually reduced the dosage until she decided they werent needed any more. We then had a few one-off situations where she took some again, but not touched them for years now.

Thanks so much for replies. It always helps to know others have been through the same thing.
We have dinner at about 6.30 and she has no screen time after that.
I will def try the suggestions above about resting her eyes, and podcasts- I hadn’t thought of that. To be honest I am getting annoyed at her at times (because everyone is tired and frustrated) and I know this is entirely counterproductive so I definitely need other things to try.

She actually bought herself a worry doll from our local museum when we were out today so I will have to find it and get her to give it a try!

This app has lots of free stories (just click past the subscribe bit) and there's sounds like waves etc too