9 year old DD has always been an excellent sleeper until earlier this year. We’re having trouble with a very rigid mindset which we can’t seem to shift.
During the school week she is in breakfast club early every day, we’re out of the house by 7:40am and I wake her at 7am. She’s usually fast asleep or dozing when I go in.
On weekdays she likes to go to bed at 7:30pm, she doesn’t need to go that early but she refuses to change the time. That means she lies awake and gets upset that she can’t get to sleep. Refuses to read, listen to audiobooks or play in her room. If we’re doing anything that leads to a later night, even something really fun, she gets extremely distressed and would rather not go (we still go, of course).
On Friday and Saturday nights she gets very upset because I’m not waking her up the next day. As the week goes on she gets more and more emotional about it. I have explained that whilst we don’t tend to lie in, our bodies and brains work hard during the week so weekends are not a time for alarm clocks. Once she wakes up there’s less than 30 seconds before I’m in her room, it’s not as though she’s left alone for any length of time.
The only nights she will sleep happily is one night a week when I let her sleep with me, we agreed to one night as otherwise she’d be in there all the time. I wouldn’t mind (anything for an easy life/not going to last forever etc) but DH does. On this night there is zero fuss, she goes to sleep in seconds and wakes up happy.
This has been made worse by the loss of our dearly loved family pet in the summer holidays, and DH working away temporarily so only home Fri/Sat eves. We’ve started a reward chart to work towards something she really wants and it helped a lot during the week, but Friday and last night she was very upset again and ended up going to sleep after 10pm. That leaves no time to chill before going to bed myself.
Bedtime routine always the same: screen time stops hours before bedtime, bath, reading a book together etc.
Reading this back I can see a lot of people will prob respond to say she sounds neurodiverse, and maybe that’s possible (no signs apparent during the day or at school) but even if she was, the problem would still exist! Any advice much appreciated.