7 Year Old Trouble Falling Asleep

[kenmoremmm]

Our daughter has never been a good sleeper. She struggled as a baby. Never once fallen asleep in the car. And through the age 3-6 period, needed intermittent help falling asleep (someone laying in the room with her). Now, at 7.5 years old, she's has several months in a row of good sleep and falling asleep on her own, but has recently gotten into a terrible pattern of getting legitimately stressed about being able to fall asleep. She will say that worrying about it getting too late stresses her out and then we find her coming out of her room every few minutes.

She's the kind of kid that is booksmart and well-read and I can see her getting lost in her mind about concerns like this. She will often get worried in the morning about being late for school even though she hasn't been late once in her life and we live a 10 minute walk away and always have plenty of time.

I'm not sure where to turn or what needs to be adjusted. Curious if any others have had similar experiences along with what might have worked.

[GilesMM]

Are YOU stressed about anything?  A lot of time kids pick up on the stress of their parents and get stressed out themselves.

[Dollar Slice]

I've been a bad sleeper (for a variety of reasons) since at least elementary school... I can remember having insomnia in fourth grade, anyway. Still have it pretty badly. I guess some of us are like that? Your daughter's sounds like anxiety to me, which definitely can cause sleeplessness. It's been a problem for me at times. Do other family members have anxiety problems? (My parents both do, as well as at least one grandparent.)

I assume there's absolutely no caffeine or caffeine-adjacent substance being consumed? No soda, energy drink, dark chocolate, iced tea...? I'm hyper-sensitive to caffeine and that may have been a problem for me as a kid as I don't know that my parents cared about us drinking cola at any given time/age.

No screens anywhere near bedtime?

Maybe talk to her doctor if you can't figure out what's winding up the kiddo so much.

[kanga1622]

My youngest was one that would sometimes take 2 hours to fall asleep because his brain was wound up and he struggled to "power down." The key for him was using the Calm app. Everything on there is a very soothing pattern for his brain and he now can fall asleep most nights in 20 mins. Even the music playlists are very "elevator music" so there aren't any amped up, louder, catchier spots that would get his brain going. He prefers to listen to the sleep stories and there are a ton to choose from with new ones being added all the time. But the white noise sounds and music playlists are great as well. There are even short meditation pieces that I really should use!

Might be worth a trial run of the app to see if it helps. For him it was ADHD/Anxiety keeping his brain running all the time. Audiobooks and general music playlists had too much attention grabbing parts so they didn't help. But I swear the lifetime subscription we bought for Calm (on a Black Friday discount of course) has been a HUGE benefit. He can sleep anywere if we put on the app. The entire family keeps it on their phones so we can all use it with the single login.

[Sibley]

Whether or not your kid has anxiety, some of the techniques that help with anxiety may help. Things like plenty of exercise, kid-friendly meditation, etc. Won't hurt, might help. But it sounds like anxiety or similar should be on your radar with this kid regardless.

[Just Joe]

No idea if this would help your daughter but I sleep with "brown noise" playing in the background. Doesn't have to be loud. I play it using an old second hand phone.

Also when I was a kid with ADD I used to tell myself creative "stories". They were always success stories so no conflict, everything went right, etc. All sorts of kid style adventures. Exploring, climbing, fun things... I'd last about 15-20 minutes and be fast asleep. Very calming.

These days I sleep really quickly with the brown noise playing in the background. Really just need it for the first hour b/c I turn in ~45 minutes before the rest of the family. It masks the other noises in the house. Android has several sleep sounds built in that taper off at the 1 hour mark.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7364558?hl=en

You have to ask Google Assistant for it, and ask Google Assistant to stop the noises if you want them to stop before the 1 hour mark. I think DW has something similar with Siri. 

Edited wording to be more clear...

[rothwem]

Weird thought, but it’s winter and usually physically activity tapers off a bit, is she getting enough exercise? I don’t sleep well if I’m too sedentary, I don’t know why that wouldn’t also apply for a child. More specifically, if my brain is too tired but my body isn't, that mismatch really makes for an awful nights sleep.

[jeninco]

Assuming the other things are taken care of, I just watched a presentation from a doctor who pointed out that if the message you tell yourself is "oh no, tomorrow will be TERRIBLE if I don't get sleep", you're setting yourself up to fail. See if she can go with "you know, I'm lying here resting quietly, so whatever happens, I should be OK for tomorrow".

Me, I discovered during menopause-induced hot flashes that my best tactic was to relax and pet the cat (she usually sleeps on my knees, but when I wake up she realizes it's a petting opportunity and walks over and does the striding back-and-forth thing while I pet her. Purring is sleep-inducing!

Here's a presentation about my first paragraph:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRsI5ybG8Z4

[sonofsven]

Have you tried bedtime stories?
I used to read to my daughter every night, but she started reading on her own very early so me reading to her wasn't as appealing!
So I then made up a story every night, just made it up on the fly, but usually starring the same two characters.
I would also lay with her after the story, and did lots of yawning, and relaxed breathing, really over emphasizing the yawning because it's contagious.
It worked, but the downside was that I often fell asleep (for a bit) too!

[PMG]

For me it sometimes really helps relieve worry to walk through the worst case scenario. What would happen if she were late? What would happen if she slept in too long? Etc. My guess is that one of the grown ups would come and wake her. And what if the grown up forgot to wake her and she really truly was late for school? Walking thru the consequences and getting to a realization that all will be well might help her. This can be a literal conversation. It could also be a fairytale. Perhaps lateness isn’t to true worry, but working through a variety of stories and situations to discover again and again that “all will be well.” Can be a powerful tool to counter anxiety.

[LennStar]

I thing I only repeat stuff, but anyway:

No screens for 1 hour before bed.
Meditation (though be aware that in some cases that might make it worse, at least for some weeks, and children don't have the willpower to go through it then)
Does she move enough?
I guess from your description she reads before bed? If not try that, I know that I take at least half an hour in bed. Either by tossing around being awake or by reading ;)
Try sounds from mynoise.net, they even have a sleep aid category.
The good old Teddy Bear (or whatever). Maybe she just needs something to snuggle up? Side sleeper pillow might also help in that case. 

[shelivesthedream]

I think it would help to take the pressure off SLEEPING. I have always found it hard to get to sleep, even as a child, and clock-watching is the absolute worst. Then when I had a newborn it was awful when they were asleep and I wasn't and I felt like precious sleep minutes were just draining away.

So I used to put Radio 4 on (middle class soothing talk radio) and tell myself I was just "resting"". Lying down still in a darkened room. I'd always fall asleep eventually.

I would talk to your daughter about the importance of "resting", even if she doesn't get to sleep. And then I would buy some of her favourite books on audiobook and put them on quietly when you turn the lights out. Familiar ones played repeatedly with be more soothing and she won't stay up to find out what happens next! Tell her it's to help her pass the time while she's "resting" and not to worry about getting to sleep or not.

Is she well-rested the next day? If she's struggling to get to sleep but still getting enough sleep then that's OK, you just need to deal with her worries. If it's really affecting her by not getting her enough rest, you could consider a psychologist.

You could also consider reassuring her that she'll get the opportunity to have a lie in at the weekends or a nap so that she doesn't worry about "not getting enough sleep". Has school been doing some "healthy sleep/importance of sleep" stuff with her? Has she read a book about it? It may be that the pressure is coming from somewhere external, that if she doesn't get enough sleep her brain won't grow or something.

Ask her: "Tell me about why you're so worried about getting to sleep. Oh, interesting. Tell me more about that
 Hmm. Tell me more about that."

[kenmoremmm]

Thanks for all the comments. Some feedback:
* Yes, we parents are currently very stressed. Shitty house build and legal stuff associated with that. Dad died. Resulting marital stress. Work is busier than I want.
* No other anxiety problems in the family that I know of.
* Definitely no screens near bedtime. We don't do much in the way of screens in general.
* Might take a look at the Calm app. We do have white noise in her room, but the original idea there was to help her fall asleep as an infant b/c any noise would wake her. It's probably a crutch now.
* Daughter is very active, very healthy. For example, this last weekend she XC skied 8km, was tired at dinner, but then still had troubles falling asleep.
* Yes, we could do messaging differently. It'll be what it'll be. If you don't get to bed now, you'll still wake up tomorrow and do all the same things you would have anyway.
* It's been a while since I've made up stories. Might give that a shot to help leave her with something to contemplate alternatives to while she's working on falling asleep.
* We've tried the resting approach, but she still gets agitated and starts to worry. We'll see if we can re-frame that tactic.

[Just_Me]

Our 6.5 yo has never slept well, stopped napping before she was 2, and has an incredibly hard time some nights calming down enough to sleep. She also freaks out about being unable to sleep or other issues (hyperventilating, sobbing, etc). She's also neurodivergent which likely has an impact the sleep issue and her response, so carry on with reading skeptically.

We have tried just about all of the recommendations in this thread with varying levels of success. Some nights there's nothing that helps. So, we just stick it out with her until she's calm enough to fall asleep.

If she's worried about something, we will let her talk as much or as little about it without dismissing it or telling her it's not a big deal. She has lots of what ifs, and I've found that the only way to get through it is to respond "I'm not sure, what do you think would happen if XYZ happened?" Letting her voice it takes the edge off.

Sometimes she's too worried about it. I'll give her the open space to talk, and if she doesn't take it, after a very long time I'll say something like "there's something you're really worried about and you're too worried to talk about it. If you want to talk about it or not, I still love you." It usually comes out after lots of silence, or she's able to sleep.

Finally, if she's freaking out about specifically being unable to sleep which has strangely actually been happening this week, we have found that addressing the frustration side of not being good at falling asleep is the key here,  not the worry. Letting her know that it's frustrating to learn new things like sleep, especially when she's really good at some things, and that it doesn't mean that anything is wrong with her. That approach has worked much better than some of the anxiety techniques.

One of my favorite parenting books of what feels like hundreds over the last 5 years is Good Inside. Her approach resonates well with my personal philosophy, DW approves and uses techniques from it, and most importantly DD responds well to the approach.

[daverobev]

Random thoughts:

1. Fresh air/cooler room?

2. What time is 'bedtime'? Here in France children go to bed really late (from my perspective), but they seem to deal with it just fine

3. Instead of white noise, music on repeat, or even quiet radio if you can get a channel without adverts (BBC is great for that)

4. Is she actually tired in the morning? During a holiday could you just set a 'no bedtime' and let her go to sleep when she actually wants to? Find the natural sleep time.

[Dee18]

I have found Huberman's suggestion to get outside early in the morning works, even if it's only for 5 minutes. It has helped rectify my previous pattern of being sleepy around 5:00 p.m. and then feeling wakeful at 10:00 p.m. Also, a friend of mine who is a physician says for some people total time on screens impacts sleep. I seem to be in that category and sleep better when I end screens several hours before bedtime.

[shelivesthedream]

4. Is she actually tired in the morning? During a holiday could you just set a 'no bedtime' and let her go to sleep when she actually wants to? Find the natural sleep time.

Yeah, this is an interesting thought. I would avoid "No bedtime" in the sense that I don't think it would be a good idea to let her do whatever she wants because she might end up too wound up to sleep from playing or whatever. But a "No lights out" experiment might be interesting where she can sit up in bed and read for as long as she wants. I mean, she's not using that time to sleep so why not let her use it in a manner which is pleasant but not overly stimulating and see what happens? I still love falling asleep with my face in a book vs tossing and turning for ages when I can.

Again, I really really REALLY recommend audiobooks. Often you can borrow them on a library app. She can lie there in the dark and pass the time, she gets more "reading" time, you hopefully don't have her popping downstairs all the time, she's already horizontal so it's really easy for her to drift off. My husband used to fall asleep to an audiobook every single night as a child. And it reduces the pressure to JUST GET TO SLEEP ALREADY. Taking the focus off sleeping often helps.

[lhamo]

Was your daughter close to the grandfather that died?  I had severe insomnia for about six months after my grandfather died when I was seven -- he was my primary attachment figure and died suddenly of a heart attack on Thanksgiving.  For a bunch of complicated reasons, my parents never talked about it after the  memorial service.  I started having extreme fear/anxiety about going to sleep -- heart would start racing and I thought I would also have a heart attack and die in my sleep like he did. 

Maybe not an issue in your family, but thought it worth mentioning just in case.  If my parents had understood/reacted differently to this situation my whole mental health history probably would have been VERY different.