ADHD kids who can’t (or just won’t) go to bed - any tips?!!

[Adhdaaaah]

Every single night - every single night my adhd six year old causes problems at bedtime. Refuses to go to sleep, refuses to stay in bed, refuses to settle down. He plays up, hits, shouts, gets up, whines. He can’t actually get himself to sleep on his own without a podcast or being held either and it takes such a long time to even get to that point. It’s gone 10 every night. I have no evenings. (He is awake right now and driving me crazy.)

He also gets into my bed in the middle of the night every night and wakes me or DH up too.

I try very hard with gentle parenting but sometimes I lose it. He doesn’t care - or stop - when he gets things taken away from him (not very “gentle parenting” but honestly I’m at a loss).

He’s not getting enough sleep as a consequence and is tired and poorly behaved the following days.

What do I do?! He has an active life - so he’s exhausted in theory!!

Help!!!!

Bump!

Can totally sympathise. DD was like this for years and is currently being assessed for ASD & ADHD.

We tried everything. Is he taking any ADHD medication?

Have you tried melatonin or other medication to help with sleep?

My DD aged 6 is currently being assessed for ADHD and bedtimes are always a struggle.It is gone 9 usually, but used to be 10, on occasion 11 last year.
The main thing we have changed is we rarely let her have anything with high sugar content past lunchtime.
If she does, especially jelly or ice lollies, we pay for it!
She has bedtime stories on my phone, fidget toys or books in bed (she can't just 'lie there' and settle without a distraction)
She often comes down asking for snacks....I was being strict on saying no to this but sometimes it's the only way she will then settle if I say she can have something to eat along as she settles down straight after, it usually does the trick.

Thank you for these replies! He’s not on any medication and we’ve only given him melatonin when we’ve all been very jet lagged (and have all taken it). Obviously it works incredibly well! But didn’t think it was a good idea to give it to him long term?

Good point about the sugar. He has a pretty good diet, not too many treats, but there are always birthday parties etc where he gets cake and ice cream and jelly sweets. I think I’ll discretely try no sugary stuff after 12pm when I can!

Melatonin has been a game changer with DD. We tried literally everything. Now she's sleeping more she is calmer and more able to self regulate in the day. Nowhere near NT but at least we're not in crisis every minute every day.

Many DC with additional needs take melatonin longer term. It is generally considered one of the safer medications.

DS didn't sleep through the night until he was 3 1/2 years old and I really felt like I was losing my mind. He's 11 now and I feel like sleep is still a trigger for me even though he's much more cooperative about it.

No one ever mentioned possible ADHD when we were going through the worst of it but now I'm sure he's on that spectrum. Trying to convince school to refer him for an assessment is still a battle though.

Sorry I don't have much to advise, mostly just empathising with you. We are strict about no chocolate after 2pm and limiting other sweets, especially later in the day.

It's hard but I hope you find some coping mechanisms that work for you.

DD never slept - as a baby she could easily go 36 hours plus with no sleep.

Co-sleeping helped a lot, but we basically gave up on bedtimes at about age 2. She did bath and pyjamas and story at a sensible time and then could stay up as long as she did something quiet that didn't involve our participation.

Worked really well - no rows, she felt in control and DH and I got some evening time back. She also learned to amuse herself. She generally took herself to bed around midnight.

She's now 14, still goes to bed around midnight and we finally got round to getting the ADHD diagnosis we'd long suspected.

Part of the trigger for my actually getting my act together on the ADHD was that she started complaining that her brain was too whirry to sleep about a year ago, and while she was going to bed at midnight she wasn't falling asleep till 3 or 4 am.

Ordered some melatonin gummies online and they have worked like magic. I confessed to the psychiatrist that I just get them in bulk from the US and he didn't seem to think that was a problem. So we have continued them now that she's started on the ADHD meds.

I totally understand where you are coming from - I spent months trying every possible method of getting child into bed and asleep and learned that you cannot make a child eat or sleep unless they wish to.

My IL's once insisted that 4 year old DD must go to bed at 8pm... we were staying at their house. She screamed non-stop for 3 hours (with me there in the room with her) at which point I brought her downstairs and she sat and did colouring in silence for the next hour before taking herself off to bed. They never, ever suggested I try again... our room was directly above their sitting room so they had had to listen to 3 hours of relentless screaming as well.

DD is very demand avoidant so we have learned to pick our battles. Bedtime is not one of them (partly because she never seemed to need much sleep - not sure what we would have done if she hadn't always functioned well on not a lot of sleep).

Melatonin.

The reason he can't sleep is because his body isn't producing melatonin as it should.

Supplementing is like giving a diabetic insulin.

So negative side effects long term from melatonin use and he will feel better from having proper sleep.

It is a supplement, not a sleeping drug, it's not like you're drugging or tranquilizing your kid

x

I suggest melatonin assuming you are not an idiot who is giving your kid red bull, chocolate and an ipad at 10pm.

If you are doing this, stop before resorting to medicine 😂

Haha I am not doing any of that! This week I am also trialling out no screens after 4pm (so one quick episode after school, if that) to see if that helps.

This is really interesting about melatonin. I had thought it would be a bad thing to do longterm! I am definitely going to research this more as melatonin really works on him.

A couple of DD's cousins have been on melatonin for years - with doctor's approval in 2 different countries. No issues so far and it helps massively.

It was on my siblings' advice that we tried it and it has been brilliant.

My DD's been on melatonin for 3 years now with no ill effects.

Sleeping is good for you!