what if child cannot sleep?
8 year old can’t sleep at night - CHADD's ADHD Pare...
8 year old can’t sleep at night
It can be very hard for children to relax and fall asleep. It seems like a skill that they need help learning- a regular routine- e.g. snack, bath, book, sleep can help. A lot of kids enjoy learning about relaxation- take slow, deep breaths, imagine being in a hammock, relax each muscle, etc. My son also takes melatonin some nights as, paradoxically, sometimes the more tired you are, the harder it is to fall asleep!
I know of many parents who give their child melatonin at night to help with sleep. My son has a sleep disorder and so we use melatonin (in addition to other meds). In my experience, compounded melatonin (ie compounded by a pharmacist) is superior that over the counter products.
There are also things like sports, weighted blankets and noise machines can all help. Good luck
do they get enough exercise?
Nothing sugary after about 5pm
Make sure room isn’t too hot
No screen time after dinner or anything that is too stimulating. Try reading or puzzles or board games.
Check to see if they are anxious about something and try and work through whatever it is with them.,
make sure there isn’t too much light in the room.
I am in the same boat. I can not get my son to bed before 10PM most nights. Attempts to do so normally result in fighting and working him up which then makes him going to sleep even less likely
He is also very anxious, jumping at every sound he here's convinced there is a robber or someone in the yard. He insists on some sort of light. He really only calms down if there is someone in the bed at night so has taken to falling asleep in our bed
He also has what he calls "bad memories" of things that have happened to him such as a balloon flying away. He insists on watching a video on the phone at night to help him calm down
I totally agree though with the over stimulation comment above and a good approach is to wind them down with a bath and reading a book
When psychiatrist prescribed stimulants for ADHD for my son he did mention that if we observe this affects his sleep then he can give him melatonin. However my son had testable side effects altogether on stimulants, not only sleep so we swapped to Atomoxetine and now he sleeps well. Periactin is also mild sedative and helps children with mood and sleep and increases appetite so you can ask your child’s doctor about it. My son sometimes reads before bed and sometimes he asks for a sleep podcast and listens to it. It’s a nice routine with the slew podcast- I ask him which one he wants to listen to, Cat Marina or El mercado etc. he really gets quite relaxed with that🙂
Omg we went through this this summer with our as yett unmedicated ADHD 8yo girl when someone at camp told her about Bloody Mary. She would not sleep. Maybe 2-4 hours max a night. For weeks. There are actually YouTube videos of a child psychologist (Natasha Daniels talking about this re fear; she has a great FB group roo, but it's more for OCD.)
I'm just here to say I know how that is and it sucks. We ended up at the ER a few times because I was convinced she was really going to have a real break with reality of some kind.We tried every non medicine solution her therapist and medical doctors suggested. We tried that antihistamine they give kids for sleep (hydroxizine?). Nothing worked except me sleeping on her floor.
Eventually, it passed but tbh, I don't think we had an effect on it. That's our story anyway! I feel you because it has such a deteriorating effect on everyone! Sorry for typos.
We went through this with my son. It got worse once he started taking meds for ADHD. He had several nights with NO sleep! In addition to his ADHD tendencies, he was sleep deprived and grumpy. It was awful for the whole family. We were all walking on egg shells because the smallest thing would set him into a spiral of rage.
Melatonin helped some before he started medication, but once on the meds even 10mg of Melatonin was useless. We had to start him on 0.1mg Clonidine before bedtime. We saw immediate results with this.
In addition to his the Clonidine we also worked on his bedtime routine. This included purchasing a better mattress/pillow. (Probably not necessary for most kids, but my son's old mattress was a cheap Big Lots mattress from when he was a toddler.) For relaxation I got him an Echo Dot, a subscription to Audible & a smart light bulb. He listens to a book for 30 mins-1 hour each night. This has been a huge help getting him relaxed. Once the book starts, I tell the Echo to stop playing & turn off his light in an hour. Once the hour is up the book stops and the light automatically turns off. He is usually asleep by then, but if he isn't, he can just use his voice to turn it back on again. It is the only way I can get him to agree to turn off the light.
Our experience for our now 9 y.o. (ADHD) in order of effectiveness: 1. Clonidine in the hours before bed has been VERY effective. 2. We abandoned melatonin - it counterintuitively disturbed his sleep quality (waking during the night). 3. Blankets, etc. have helped, but were ineffective on their own.
Hang in there! Things improved for us dramatically over the year we tackled this sleep issue.
Our 9 yo, just turned 12, was prescribed clonidine to take an hour or so before bedtime. It has worked wonderfully. Melatonin prior to that somewhat helpful when she was younger, however, just did not cut it by the time she was 9.
Like so many others, getting to sleep has always been hard for my ADHD son (9). To avoid screens, I splurged on this meditation/relaxation device called Morphee. It has tons of options from nature sounds and music to guided meditations. My son usually just listens to the music and it usually help to settle him down at night.
He recently started stimulant medication which has had no effect other than to make it harder to sleep (fabulous)! So far, we've been using Magnesium (200 mg) in the evening and that has helped. A fairly strict, early bedtime routine has also helped us. Seems like you've got lots of good advice - I hope something sticks!