poor dd2, she cant sleep

[misdee]

she has bouts of insomnia at times. it hits suddenly and can last for upto a week.

she is in tears as she cant fall asleep. have given her my ipod with some soothing music on it, and tried to settle her down.

she doesnt sleep much anyway, so any sleep she gets is very important to her.

poor girl

Oh bless her it is sooo hard.

The iPod works well for my girls when they can't sleep. DD2 is 7 and listens to audiobooks when she wakes in the night.

Same with my dd (AS, 13). Finds it impossible to sleep, and has been through nocturnal phases where she is awake all night and sleeps all day.

I mentioned melatonin and she flatly refused, as she doesn't want to be medicated. And oh, doesn't like music either, so I'm trying to get her to listen to talk radio.....Also doesn't like audiobooks as she finds the Jacqieline Wilson type stories patronizing (!).

She won't help herself, so how can I help her????

Misdee, I hope your dd finds a way to help her get some sleep.

she fell asleep shortly after midnight, and was awake by 5 [yawns]

We use Melatonin, we get the capsuals so i can put them in the dd's drink before bedtime. Dd1 was just like your dd, she would lie awake for hours and get very frustrated as she could not get off to sleep, she now falls asleep within 20 minutes.

when she was younger we used vallergen, but hated it as it made her so dopoey the following day.

she hasnt ever needed much sleep, and is often awake early, but tends to just read in bed whilst waiting for the rest of us to get up.

I don't suppose it will help at all - but for me a few drops of Lavender Oil on my pillow helps.

My son uses Melatonin now. At first we tried a half tablet at a time. Then I read that sometimes a very tiny dose can have more effect than a half or complete 3mg tablet.

So now he has one tablet and nibbles it like some character in Alice in Wonderland. It lasts for 2 weeks or more, getting tinier each day!

we used to get night-time milk for her from waitrose. i dont know if it was placebo effect or not but seemed to work. apparenly it was from cows milked at a different time to contain higher levels of melatonin.