9 yo dd can't get to sleep at night

[TOmom]

My 9 yo dd has been having trouble getting to sleep at night for the past few months - probably 4/7 days a week. She goes to bed at 9 pm after reading for about 30 min (no TV at night) but then will struggle just lying there awake, sometimes crying for 2-3 hours. Of course she's tired the next day - we have to wake her for school. She says she's crying because she can't get to sleep and there really doesn't seem to be anything else bothering her. This child has never had this problem or any sleep problem even as an infant/toddler. dh tries to comfort her as I am unavailable as I go to bed at 9 pm with my 2 month old (this problem started well before baby came). It's gotten to the point where we can predict at bedtime whether she is going to have trouble that particular night or not as she gets visibly distressed and panicky about bedtime ie. gets upset if it's a few minutes past 9:00 or if her sister isn't in bed exactly at 8:30 (they share a room) or if she can't think of anything good to dream about. We give numerous suggestions of peaceful things to dream/think about but she rejects them all - it's like she's decided sleep will be difficult that night. She keeps 3 clocks at the side of her bed and looks at the time frequently which further upsets her but she won't give them up. It breaks my heart to see her struggling so much and I fear that she's convincing herself she now has a sleep problem.

Anyone else dealt with this? She always thrived on a regular bedtime routine but now she seems to be taking it to the extreme.

Also, we have tried letting her stay up later reading like 9:30 or even 10:00 but it just makes it worse as she's clearly overtired.

[spin462002]

Been there done that at around the same age. This can become a vicious cycle where there are no winners. Talking and resurring did nothing. The anxiety is real and she needs to learn how to handle it for herself. I found her behaviour very difficult and actually discussed it with a counsellor. She suggested giving her tools to use to deal with the anxiety and insisting I did not reinforce her crying and upset with sympathy.

We left a lamp on all night as she became more anxious in the dark. I talked to her about ways she could deal with her feelings.
1. I suggested she read a bit longer till she felt tired (do check what she is reading, my DD was scaring herself with her books!)
2. She could get up and get a glass of milk and a cookie.
3. She could listen to audio taped stories through headphones until she fell asleep.(this was a big winer)
4. She could stay up a little later

I think changing her bedtime just a little would help break the cycle. Does she normally have a shower before bed? Start a new habit. Create some different experiences. Take two of those clocks away, let her choose which one she wants to keep.No buts!!! It's for her own good.

Maybe you could spend some time with her before you go to bed? Maybe you could read her a story and have a quiet chat.

I don't think giving her attention for this behaviour is a solution. I ended up being very firm and refusing to listen to the anxious thoughts. I told her she was in charge of her thoughts and she needed to help herself. I did not sympathize but firmly reminded her what her self help choices were. It took a few nights of resistance, crying etc. but without the sympathy and attention it soon became less and less of an issue. Now my DD is almost 12 and goes to bed when she chooses, reads for a while and goes to sleep happy and secure, NO PROBLEMS.

good luck and I know you can help her overcome this temporary phase in her life
sometimes you have to be firm for her own good and long term benefit.

L

[StarChild]

My dd's teacher has been telling us a lot about the 9/10 change. They are really figuring out that they are separate from the world and everyone else. It brings on a lot of intense new feelings that they don't know how to deal with. Nightmares and new fears are supposed to be a big part of it as well.
I am sorry she is having such a hard time. My dd has always had a hard time at bed time, it can be very taxing!

:heartbeat
Hope things improve soon!

[mamarhu]

I respectfully disagree with the suggestion to make her deal with this alone. My kids, around the same age, have a standing invitation to my bed, any time they want. Frequently my son, and less often my daughter, will join me if they cannot sleep. They are still young, and there is nothing wrong with still needing the comfort of Mama. ElderSon occassionally did the same until he was about 12, then outgrew the need. All on his own, no push out of the nest was necessary. I don't feel any rush about it. But maybe this response belongs in the "Family Bed" section?

[LDSmomma6]

My DD is almost 11. She's had a problem since 9 yrs old too. It started out when her then 10 yr old cousin told her a scary story. But it wasn't bad yet. Maybe a night here and there. Not often. Well, then we took her to see Harry Potter 3. BIG MISTAKE!! Then everything she ever was afraid of was keeping her up at night. We had an attempted break-in months before. Never bothered her until after seeing Harry Potter 3. Then she watched Spider Man 2 at some point, and was scared of that. Hours and hours of her crying. Nothing we did would console her. I was not getting sleep. I had a newborn. I was going crazy. I made her start standing in the dark in the living room while I layed on the couch. She would cry. She would cry no matter where she was at. DH had to work the next morning. I couldn't let her cry in my room, nor her room as she had sisters in there too. What else was I suppose to do? She told me she cold one night. I told her to go to her warm bed. She did. She got better. But it was almost a year. Some weeks were better then others. We then moved to a new house, and I knew she would start all over. The day we moved in I told her to check her windows, and all the locks on the doors, and the other windows as well, and to make sure they were all locked. I told her their were 2 big dogs outside that would bark. She was cool with it all. In the last 7+ months, she has cried 1 time. I took her to the living room, and within 10 minutes she was back in her room, never to cry again at bed time, so far.

We are careful what she watches on TV/movies, even the news. I remember hearing a story when I was 9 that happened when some guys in California hijacked a school bus and buried the bus and kids for some time. No one was killed. They found the kids alive, but I think for months afterwards I searched the Alabama woods as I rode the bus making sure no one was coming out to kidnap me. The news can be scary. Even commercials especially on TNT and USA are bad. We have to be careful with our talk too. DH & I know we just can't start talking about something like Big Foot (stories of Big Foot is popular around here) or how we heard the coyotes in our yard the night before. Nothing that will freak her out. When she does hear something, and I know she heard, or see it (like on TV) I quickly tell her a positive thing, or that TV shows are not real, etc... Something to get her mind off of it immediately. I figured she is only a child, and we need to shield her as much as we can. One day she will be grown up, and hopefully will be grown out of it more then she already is.

[maya44]

My dd also has some of these issues. We have an "open bed" policy. She is free to crawl into bed with us, though she seldom takes us up on this. I think when her body is not tired ennough, she starts to panic about getting ennough sleep. She is old ennough to know that she will be tired the next day and to worry about it.

What really has helped was Melatonin supplements. I talked to our pediatrician about it and reserached all the studies. It is a natural supplement and appears safe. It seems very effective in helping a good percentage of people get to sleep.

[LookMommy!]

Wow, I thought he was unique. His therapist (he has other issues) suggested not letting him in our bed, because it reinforced the idea that sleep was "scary". In fact, I do let him in my bed occasionally, but it is not part of the routine, although my dh will lie down in his room if necessary (showing his bed is safe). He was at the point where he insisted that his bedtime was 9 p.m. and would get anxious if I was 1 second late to sleep with him in my bed. Well, sometimes I don't want to/can't end my day at 9 p.m., yk? He would start obsessing in the afternoon, like "5 more hours until my bedtime". We homeschool, so I don't enforce a strict bedtime, but he seems to need one, to feel safe.

We taught him some progressive relaxation techniques, visualization stuff, etc. I read to him each night, nothing scary. He can listen to his gerbil run, or his heart beat, or whatever. I wake him up if necessary in the morning so he is good and tired at night.

I agree with teaching your child to empower him/herself, but supporting him/her a whole lot (talk about it during the day, not just when it happens), since this is a problem that adults struggle with too, and it isn't easy!

BTW, I researched melatonin and decided it wasn't for us, but we did use "sleepy tea" (chamomile) for a while.

Now the challenge is to move up bedtime, since it somehow slipped to 10:30 - 11:00 p.m. for the 3 kids, and that is past my bedtime! Although I do enjoy the quiet mornings!

Good luck! Lisa :heartbeat

[hellyaellen]

I actually had this problem myself when i was younger. i never thought about it till now but i guess it started around that age. For years I had nights when I just couldn't sleep. Sometimes it was b/c I was reading/watching things that were too intense or too scary. Sometimes it was jusy my natural clock. Many times I was awakened by bad dreams. I was always welcome to get in bed with my mom. Even into my late teens/early twenties. And it was tremendously reassuring to have that option. I didn't always get in her bed. Mainly when I had had bad dreams or was reading a scary book. I still have a really late running clock naturally (here it is 3:15 and I'm still up) but by working evenings I've made it work for me. Since I had my first 6 years ago, sleep is such a precious commodity that I rarely have trouble falling asleep when its time too :zzz :rotflmao (by 8am if I want to be up at 3 when dd gets home from school.) I think the most important thing you can do for your dd is to respect her need for your reassuring presence even at night and to honor her natural rythems as much as possible.

[NiBeKa]

My dd had this same problem that began at night time and evolved into the entire day. It was always worse at night when she had time to think and the anxiety of that kept her awake. We did end up at a psychologist after pediatrician and gastroentologist. We always did a lot of relaxation techniques at bedtime, her headphones with fave music and of course sleeping near me. The problems always seemed smaller in my bed for her. Keeping in contact with the school helped a lot. She also had school anxiety and at their age they don't really know what's wrong they just know they think they're different. Ours escalated quickly to critical, 3 sessions with the therapist and working on exposure therapy, once we were able to determine some of her anxieties, she did much better. She was almost 9 when it started. We see little signs of the previous anxieties now but it was so sad and frustrating to see her go through it. Your daughter seems to have a great support system in her momma. Hugs from us to the two of you... :hug :hug

[Lil'M]

Dd1 (8 1/2 yrs old) has been having similar issues at night. We have a regular bedtime routine for her and dd2 where we sing and tuck in at about 8pm, but she can read in her bed for awhile. Then she got too scared to get out of her bed to turn off the light when she was done reading so we bought a clip on lamp so she can read in bed and turn it off without getting up. Sometimes she comes out and says she just can't fall asleep, so we let her go in our bed to fall asleep and she knows that we will move her when she is asleep and we are ready to go to bed. (She is a huge bedtime kicker) She also knows that she is welcome in our bed if she wakes up scared in the middle of the night. Really the not being able to fall asleep and being scared thing is pretty recent, but she started a new school this year and loves it, but I figured that it was either a normal thing for her age or just a way of dealing with the stress of a new school/leaving old school, etc.

[Bekka]

Well, my dd is only 7, but she worries about really grown up things, and has been having trouble sleeping this year. In school they have talked about ancient civilizations, including Egypt, and so she has had issues about death and dying and not wanting to see or think about mummies, etc. She gets worried really easily. Strange, b/c it was her sister at 3 and 4 who had the really scary dreams and woke up several times per night.

We've tried giving her tools such as visualizations (fairies, mermaids sleeping in silk beds, whatever), relaxation techniques, reminding her she can pray, listening to music, whatever. They help. Her issues are getting less extreme. She has a crazy active imagination. We have to be very careful, monitor her screen time and news exposure and stuff.

[mamawanabe]

I had a "sleeping problem" in 5th grade. I am still a terrible sleeper. But in 5th grade, I would start getting stomach aches when the sun went down worried about whether I was going to be able to fall asleep. I had elaborate rituals - warm milk, radeo on, radio off, clock facing the wall, certain positions I would try to fall asleep in (on back with knees bent with hands on stomach) reading kid fairy tales before bed. It was terrible, that helpless feeling of not being able to make yourself fall asleep and feeling alone. And the whole thing was filled with such anxiety.

Finally, I talked myself into believeing that it was "grown up" to have insomnia. If I couldn't fall asleep, I'd get up and read or write in my journal and feel very teenagery. I'd say in a world-weary way to my friends the next day at school, "Oh, I just couldn't get to sleep last night, I must have been up untill Xoclock." I came to kinda cherish "my time". It was a matter of changing the perspective. The sleep challenges have never left, but after a year of being afraid of not being able to fall asleep, I wasn't afraid anymore. It still took me an average of 30minutes -1 hour to go to sleep, and i still had occasions where I was up till 2 for no reason. But it was no longer a chronic problem in part because I no longer saw it as a problem.

So I'd tell her that everybody sometimes can't fall asleep. That you hear people say all the time that they just couldn't sleep last night. Help her find nice, interesting things to think about as she lies in bed, let her get up and read if she can't sleep, let her get up and write in a journal. Once she starts worrying about not being able to fall asleep, the anxiety alone will keep her awake. So break the anxiety by making not falling asleep no big deal, and she will actually sleep better.

[NiBeKa]

Mamawanabe...Great idea to make it something positive. :thumb

[JkFelix]

My almost nine year old dd is the same. I bought her a lullabye cd of guitar music. Ever since I got that, she has gone to bed smoothly and also no more nightmares! (another of her nighttime issues!)

[kennedy444]

My daughter at 9 would go to bed each night listening to soft classical music and had a nightlight on. Today at almost 12 she still likes a nightlight on, plays a sound machine (usually plays the waves sometimes babbling brook) and keeps her ceiling fan on high (brrrrr).

[mightymoo]

Like some of the previous posters, I have had this sort of problem most of my life, even today I really hate going to bed because DH will be asleep in 2 minutes and I'll be awake by myself for hours.

When I was a kid I had audio tapes I listened to. Specifically for some reason The last unicorn (the movie just completely recorded onto a cassette). I liked doing that because it was something to concentrate on, but I listened to the same thing every night so it was familiar and I would usually be asleep before I had to turn the tape over.

I find that the days when I have too much on my mind I am up late and even though I am a rational adult I will start seeing things in the shadows (especially here in my parents 200 year old house we are staying in) - when you are sleep deprived your mind sometimes invents things for you - she may be afraid to tell you that she's afraid of the shadow in the corner, because in the daytime she knows its silly and unfounded, but late at night her tired mind tells her other things. The pressure being put on her by you and herself to get to sleep can make things worse. I know the worst nights are the ones when I absolutely need to get to sleep - I have the hardest times those nights. So perhaps you can just relax more about bedtime in general and when she falls asleep - personally if possible I would take away all the clocks and tell her it doesn't matter when she falls asleep.

[Marsupialmom]

I would invite her into your room. She might not fit in the bed, plus with the baby there she could disturb the 2mth old.

Believe it or not your child could be starting to change into puberty. With these hormone changes comes sleep disturbances do occur.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/children/09/28/sleepy.teens.01/

[TOmom]

Thanks so much for the replies - I had forgotten to check back recently (busy with baby) and was surprised to see all the feedback. To update - things are much better and I'm not sure exactly the reason as our household is in continual change because of the baby. I have been having to go to bed much earlier with babe recently (like 7:30 pm) so I make sure to say a positive goodnight to dd1 about 7:00 when we're not rushed or overtired and baby isn't screaming for me hopefully. Then she has the evening with her dad and sister to relax. We have also been working on simplifying our lives/social commitments (the kids - I have no social life right now!) so homework can be completed after school as she has always been too tired to do it after dinner. We've pretty much cut out TV time after school to allow for homework or play with sister/friend. Surprisingly she reads Harry Potter with her dad right before bed (I never suspected fear as a factor in her sleeplessness) and enjoys that ritual thoroughly. I suspect for her what has helped most is feeling less rushed and more organized in her life. She is the type that gets very upset if something isn't "quite right" but it takes her a long time to do things. So setting up adequate spaces of empty time for her to complete the necessities of daily life without pressure I'm sure helps her to relax at bedtime knowing all is right within her world. Also, I think puberty is coming quicker than I would like to admit!

[huggerwocky]

I respectfully disagree with the suggestion to make her deal with this alone. My kids, around the same age, have a standing invitation to my bed, any time they want. Frequently my son, and less often my daughter, will join me if they cannot sleep. They are still young, and there is nothing wrong with still needing the comfort of Mama. ElderSon occassionally did the same until he was about 12, then outgrew the need. All on his own, no push out of the nest was necessary. I don't feel any rush about it. But maybe this response belongs in the "Family Bed" section?


I agree. My daughter makes use of this very seldomly but I know she gets great comfort from the fact that she can come when she is scared or something because when we remind her of that she immediately calms down and it seems to do the trick by itself :)

[aisraeltax]

my son has problems falling asleep too and readily admits he doesnt like sleeping alone...never has, never will (his words). i have to spend a long time getting him to bed at night which isnt easy when you have a new babe. its tough but i think a schedule, some reading time esp. for him and reassurance that we are very nearby helps...but he never falls asleep on his own. i have to stay in his room until he falls asleep. he will tell me he is not tired at all while i watch his eyelids gets so heavy he can't open them up.
good luck
rach