Bed Hopping Yet Again - Why Won't She Sleep?

I can honestly say I never once imagined an 8 year old to sleep any worse than a newborn but that’s what happens in this household.

Emmy, as I have written about previously HATES sleep!

I have no idea where it stems from however as I love my sleep as does Harry, and while Paul is a night owl staying up late night after night once asleep it’s almost impossible to wake him and on the weekends you’ll not see him much before midday.

As a baby she slept through the night from 10 weeks – I know we were very lucky but believe me it’s all changed now – she’ll still be awake when I am heading to bed at times, unable to switch off and unwind.

We’ve tried:

early nights
later nights
warm baths with no toys,
meditation cd’s
white noise
darkened rooms
a warm bedroom
a cool bedroom
warm milk
no TV after a certain time
cutting back on junk food
exercise
lavender
teddies
reading – us reading her a story and her reading until sleepy

Nothing seems to work and most evening either I end up in bed with her as then she will sleep or she comes into bed with me once I’m asleep and before her Dad goes to bed, so he ends up sleeping in her double bed while she is with me.

We decided to get her a double as were fed up squeezing into her single to help her get to sleep – especially if she’d been to sleep and then woke in the early hours – it’s almost impossible to get her back to sleep unless we are in with her. Having spent so much time in there recently though I have decided it is definitely time to replace her mattress – not that I think this is keeping her awake but if we are spending so much time in there I’d rather be a tad more comfy. I’ve been browsing Groupon’s Mattress pages for some deals.

Now we have got to the point as nothing works anyway we take her up to bed, have a chat to clear the thoughts from her mind and talk about her day and then she watches some TV. On a school night she is allowed up to 3 programmes before it has to go off and then if she still can’t sleep she reads or she has been known to draw.

I know this isn’t ideal however with Harry asleep we don’t want him woken up again, I have to work some evenings and Paul has been to work all day – we need some evening time to ourselves, and if she wasn’t allowed her TV she is up and down the stairs all evening long finding an excuse to leave her room until I go to bed.

I am tired

She is tired but we can’t seem to find anything to help her to unwind, to relax and to switch off.

And she wonders why no-one invites her for sleepovers!

She does sleep when she goes to my sisters overnight – BUT she is in bed with either Harry or my niece, she will sleep here if someone is in with her only we can’t always do that nor do we want to have to.

Do you have any magical ideas?

**Collaborative post**