Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
I've just hit the end of my tether after 10 years and now I need help. My daughter 10, has always been an awful sleeper and an incredibly light sleeper. This week has broke me a bit so I need some advice or it will get betters. Something.
I believe she has autism, but we haven't had an official diagnosis (one of her siblings has a diagnosis and sleeps amazingly well).
My 10 year old has only ever slept in ridiculous patterns, like 2 hours at a time. She was baby #1, I thought all children slept like this until I had baby #2. I never understood why other parents weren't as knackered as I was.
I feel like she forces herself to stay awake on purpose, by watching TV, loud music, or sitting bolt up right in bed. When she finally does sleep it's for very little time. I realised recently how much I almost pander to it, I've always gone bed almost immediately after her as I know she will have me up within the next 2 hours. Again with the forcing herself to stay awake, she will want to chat, and try and get into a whole huge chat about things she knows we would have to look into. I give her plenty of time and opportunity to talk to me( somedays she does so the whole, need water or food, toilet, feel poorly, bedtime faking routine). I'm so over it. She's so difficult to awaken in the morning and nearly late everyday.
Last night she has me up 3 times. What can I do to help her get a better night's sleep?
Sometimes food or drink can act as a stimulant, like sugar or caffeine. For me that also includes gluten and soy, for whatever reason. Cutting those things out has drastically improved my sleeping pattern.
Also, blue light from screens can keep people awake. So during the evenings, I always turn on the blue light filters on my devices, and I have blue light filter glasses as well, they're 0.00 (I'm not a regular glasses wearer). I also turn on dark mode on anything I can, or I'll invert the screen, just so that I'm not looking at a bright white screen all the time.
Maybe melatonin would help your daughter sleep. Melatonin is a sleeping aid, but it's also something that's produced naturally in the body. It's that "sleepy feeling" you get before you fall asleep.
But there are also some rare people who in the world, who only need an hour or two of sleep, and they're okay for the rest of the day. One of my managers were one of those types of people. He'll just learn things throughout the night, and he had a broad knowledge of cultures, people, and languages. He knew a lot of history as well.
Hopefully you'll find something that works for your daughter.
Thank you for your reply. My brother is naturally one of those people who has never needed sleep. Whereas I definitely think my daughter does as she is moody and grumpy when she doesn't sleep.
I didn't think of the food and drink, my kids have a supper an hour before bed. But my daughters diet is restricted by allergies so she doesn't have anything out of the norm for her, but maybe I will try a different before bed supper and see if it helps.
I've always been anti melatonin but after all these years I feel like I've literally tried everything.
I feel like I've aged 40 years I'm the last 10 years. I want to enjoy my family, not be constantly falling asleep
Yeah, if your family has dessert after dinner, or they have sugary drinks throughout the day, that could make it harder to sleep at night.
Melatonin doesn't feel like the drug-induced drowsiness you get from taking night-time cough syrup when you're sick. Melatonin just feels like natural sleepiness, your eyes just get heavy and start to close, and then you're asleep. I mean, it makes sense, since melatonin is naturally produced by the body, and those are it's natural effects, except when you take the sleeping aid, you're just giving your body a little extra of it. I take 1mg, and it takes about an hour before I fall asleep, but some people take 3mg or 5mg, and it'll probably knock them out in 20 minutes.
I hope everything works out well for your daughter.