What time are your 9/10 year olds going to bed? ADHD

[Mich1986]

Our daughter is nearly 10, she has been diagnosed with adhd since she was 7 and we suspect autism. We go upstairs at 8, in bed by 8.30ish and she will read her book, we go upstairs around at 9.15 to take the book off her, some nights she will go straight to sleep, but most nights she is calling us back to her room until 10.30 asking for things, water(her bottle is next to her, but she won’t sit up to drink it if no one in the room with her), food, needs a light on, is hot, is cold, needs the toilet, heard a noise! It is relentless and exhausting and as parents we are at breaking point. She still has a monitor in her room which doesn’t help, but when we tried to remove it she was having meltdowns in the middle of the night and screaming for us. She needs to wake for school at 7.45/8.
what time do your 10 year olds going to bed? Any tips on how to help bedtime?

To be honest it sounds like she's getting enough sleep, even if the bedtime is quite late. My 9yo needs 10-11 hours.

Is she on any medication for the adhd.

If the late bedtimes are a problem (?) you could try low dose melatonin.

I would second melatonin, it was a game changer for our AuDHD DD. She has a low dose as the first thing on her bedtime routine and it seems to work to slow the racing thoughts down that were triggering the constant requests and resettling. It's still not perfect but it's better than it was - and we're both much more patient on the difficult nights now that those aren't every night.

Did you get the medication from the paediatrician?
She isn’t on adhd meds at the moment as that was affecting the sleep even more.

Another vote for Melatonin. Our DC2 was just like yours at that age and slow release Melatonin was transformative.

Another one suggesting asking to try melatonin. There are also other options if melatonin doesn’t work.

Did DD try a range of ADHD medications? Some people find certain ones e.g. some non-stimulants affect sleep less.

DD10 takes melatonin and generally sleeps 10-6:30 most nights. We bring her up about 9:30 and she takes a while reading etc before nodding off.

I think a lot of children age 10 are good on 9.5 hours or even 9 hours, that's still within NHS guidance for 10 year olds. My 10 year old goes to sleep every night at 11pm, sleeps until 8.30am. He can't go to sleep earlier, but will get himself to bed for 11pm even in holidays, as he's naturally keen to sleep then. When he still had to get up at 7.30am, he went to bed at 10.30pm. I would take a guide from when she naturally goes to sleep . Maybe see how her inner clock works in the holidays. Wake her up at 8am but let her decide when to switch out light (within reason), but stick to no screens/excitement from 8.30pm. There are many studies that show that too much sleep is as harmful, or even more so, than too little, and it can't be forced.