ADHD and Insomnia

Hey! I'm a parent of an eleven-year-old ADHD boy, who has a lot of difficulty going to sleep. Once he is asleep, he sleeps well. Do any of you have insomnia, and, if so, what have you done to help yourselves go to sleep? I'm looking for all the help I can get here.Help, I have a 3, almost 4 year old with the same problem, no naps, and doesn't fall asleep until 11 or 12 at night. I'm open for suggestions also. I'm at my wits end. I need to be up at 4:30 a.m. for my job, therefore making it on minimal sleep. Any voices of experience out there for us???? My son is on Concerta, the minimum dosage. Thoughts, suggestions??? Same as lilian, once asleep, stays asleep, but getting there is the hard part.

I was VERY recently diagnosed with ADHD, but i remember as a child, I always had trouble falling asleep. i would stay up late reading book after book (all short ones) by the light of my nite-light. this staying up late/being unable to fall asleep has persisted and now i am 22 and i still cannot sleep, even when i am exhausted and want to sleep, i cannot fall asleep. the moment my head hits the pillow, my mind is racing.

a therapist suggested to me a form of meditation that occasionally helps, but not too much. it may be worth a try though for the 11 year old...the younger child is probably too young. anyway, you are supposed to choose a word that is calming/peaceful to you and has syllables that are soft/round/easy to say. the word must be 1 syllable only. it can be "ohm" or something like that or it can be a real word...sometimes i use "calm" you are supposed to begin by saying the word with each exhale breath. you focus on this in the beginning but eventually, your mind will jump to other things (especially if you are ADHD) and you will catch yourself forgetting to repeat the word...this is OK, you simply start over with the breathing and the word.

the exercise is meant to allow your brain to shift thoughts around, while creating a calming effect (through the breathing) and it helps to sort some of the jumble in your head. it helps calm me down sometimes, but doesnt always help me sleep. i've pulled all-nighters while on "sleep-aids" (over the counter) for no reason and it is VERY frustrating. i wish you luc with your children. it is a very tough thing.

I have an 11 yr old daughter who has ADD. She never slept much. That's okay. She doesn't need much sleep. The rules are that she sleeps in her own bed. She goes to bed at the same time every day. She can't sleep in late the next morning. That's it. She can read in bed as late as she wants, but no video games, gameboy etc. Just reading. All night if she wants to, but she has to be up at 8 in the summer 7 during school. No exceptions. My son who doesn't have ADD is being evaluated for sleep disorder. The evaluation was suggested by his ENT doctor. That's another idea. Try the routine thing first though. Good Luck.

AHH YES, Unfortunately, I too suffer from insomnia. Fallingapart suggested using a mantra, which works for some. Some also find that visualization help...or listening to peaceful music...or watching tv/a movie and falling asleep to that.

I've struggled with insomnia since I was a kid....it used to be more of the initial falling asleep, but within the past year, it has gotten to the point where I also have problems with waking during the night. I swear I've tried every trick in the book...various meditation exercises, physical exercise during the day to wear me out, eating healthily, routine, antihistamines....and the only thing that I've found that helps me initially fall asleep pretty quickly for the past 3 years has been cuddling up with my boyfriend and having him rub my head. Since you are looking for a remedy for younger kids, I would suggest maybe rubbing their back or head, or whatever relaxes them every night to help them go to sleep. I know of one child who likes his face tickled before falling asleep....just an idea though.

I have a 9 year old daughter that has troubles going to sleep.. We can put her in bed at 9pm. but it could be 12am or so before she goes to sleep. She has the problm when she is off and on her meds. We have tryed the bath before bed.. and playing her really hard all day.. and a cup of warm tea.. depending on what we do and the day it may or may not work.. There are 4 of us in this house and we are all starting to loose a lot of sleep because of it.. any Ideas welcome!!Here too a 5 year old who has difficulty sleeping. It is hard especially when she gets up during the night sometimes and then I have to drag her up in the mornings for school or childcare then go to work. I am also a diabetic when my blood levels are not perfect it makes me tired and now I have Asthma too, Uggg!Hi, all. I usually post on the "parents of" site... but wanted to pop in here to see what the kids/teens who usually post on here were saying to try to get some insight!! But, I ran across this post and wanted to put my 2 cents in. Someone on the parents site mentioned Melatonin. It's something that the body produces naturally, to make you sleepy, and it kind of sets your body's clock. My son is 12, and was trying everything from visualization, counting exercises, tv in bed, readin in bed, tea (decaf), hot baths, you name it.. we tried it. He could not fall asleep. Two tablets (600mcg total, which isn't much) of melatonin, crushed in a cup of sleepy-time tea before bed, and he's out within a 1/2 hour. It's awesome. Read the studies online, as it is not totally recommended for smaller children.. but it's an over the counter natural supplement, and so far... so good!!!

My son is 8 and on Concerta 36 mg what helps him is half a Melatonin - (it is natural - comes in white pill form in vitamin section).

It also help with no sugar or caffeine hours before bedtime - If he is hungry after 7 or 8 he eats fruit, or something simple.

At bedtime (this is when I give him the melatonin) it also help to have a regular bedtime with a couple of stories and usually if I lay down with him I make him turn around and close his eyes while I rub his back.

Usually works like a charm.

I'm very careful about how much melatonin to give my son - definetly no more than half of an adult dose!!! -

The fall of Melatonin is also responsible for the onset of puberty...so I am not sure if that is a good long term solution. Maybe hypnotherapy? I really want to learn self hypnotism in order to deal with my extreme insomnia and that seems like the safest thing for me to do.

Hello.

I have a six year old girl who also is a pain about going to sleep. Sometimes she is a way til 4 or 5 am. And she gets into anything and everything. She hides stuff in her bed, candy,books, icing. So would this Melatonin be safe to use in my daughter? She is on Adderal XR 5 mg a day. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Christina, As Genicity mentioned, there could be some slight impact on the onset of puberty by using too much. I did a lot of research on the internet before I started using it...but a lot of it was inconclusive. Because it is only considered a "dietary supplement" here in the US, it hasn't had to go through any of the FDA testing. There have been a lot of studies on the effects, with no negative side effects in adults, but studies on children and pre-teens are lacking. I asked my doctor, and he said that it would be fine for my son in small doeses. I only give him 600mcg...and not every night. If he has a particularly active day, or seems sleepy near bedtime, we try to rely on the natural methods. But on those nights when he's restless and knows he won't be able to sleep, it works really well for him.My 10 year old son often has trouble falling asleep. He would stay up until 11 every night if I let him I'm sure. I put him to bed at 9 or 9:30. Sometimes he stays in bed but stays up until 11or so. Other times he comes out of the room over and over. That really drives me up the wall. It is worse when he is on meds. He stays up even later.

CLONIDINE!

Our 6 1/2 yr old daughter has recently started Strattera for ADHD but even prior to meds she has always "slept" less than usual and often times couldn't get to sleep after being put to bed at 9:00 - thus up till 10 ish. Amount of exercise throughout the day was usually average - still didn't matter. Insomnia a concern even before we decided to try meds - therefore Doctor prescribed clonidine. Its an old medicine orignally utilized for heart patients. She gets 1/2 pill an hour before bedtime. Works like a charm. Don't like the thought of drugging her to get her to sleep but a tired cranky child with ADHD/ODD isn't a cake walk either.

I've done only a little research on this med - since shes only been on it 6 days now I have to finish my research on this drug so you may want to look into it too.

Hope you find this helpful!

Mom

Hello everyone,

If your children need help sleeping i think talk with their doctor about Serquel cuss it really does help me sleep.

Hello adhdgirl19, My son is 5 years old and his doctor is wanting to put him on Serquel,but I am kind of cautious about it. I have read about a lot of dangerous side effects and I see that there have been a lot of lawsuits popping up over this drug. How has it effected you?My son is ADHD and he is on Ritalin he to has trouble sleeping the doctor suggested Melatonin. He is five years old she suggest 1 mg tablet at bedtime. She also put in on Clondine. He started on 1mg tablet cut in half at bedtime, then it had to be increased to a full pill, to a pill and half then to two. It works for a while but then they get used to it he has been on this since he was three. Now she is suggesting Seroquel. But I am hesitant about this, because of all the side effect and I see that it has lawsuit for it now. Clonidine does work for a while maybe it work for your children different. What also helped me was the Sleepy time tea from Celestial Seasonings it has a bear with a night cap on the front. I called it teddy bear tear my son loves it before bed. An update ... my son was taking the melatonin for a while, but it did not seem to be working that well. He was not on any meds back then. He has since been diagnosed not with ADHD, but with anxiety that was causing many of the same ADHD symptoms and also causing the sleeplessness. He is now on a very low dose of Zoloft .. which is taking care of the problems. He's been sleeping fairly well now. I've always had trouble getting to sleep/staying asleep, i've tried perscription stuff, which has never worked all that well, I have noticed that days I work out really hard like at track practice or something I usually sleep better, right now i'm taking melatonin, my doctor said to take it an hour before bed and it will help "reset" your body's sleep cycle after about 2 weeks of use, some relaxing music has also helped me or one of those rainstorm cd's or somthing like that. On the adult forum a lot of people said they have to sleep with fans on or white noise or tv or something, I think it's just something to occupy our minds so we don't get off on our ADHD tangents too bad. that's all i can think of for now, hope it helps!

The side effect of Serquel for me is sometimes.. I'm on 200 mg of Serquel i just feel really sleepy and my mom knows when the meds is kicking in because i will have this glace look in my eyes but i have not had no problems with it at all

~*~Gigi~*~

I have a 5 yr. old boy with a mixed diagnosis of ADHD and ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder), my son also does not sleep and never has. When he started his ADHD med's our ped. told us we could not sedate him at night. We however tried the Melatonin and it did work for about 6 months, but now it does nothing. Ped said he just has to learn to sleep by himself. How do you keep a impulsive, ADHD/ODD child in his room when he can't sleep? We tried locking him in, but the screaming and kicking the door is harder to sleep with than having him wander all night. My other children ask us not to lock the door, cause they can't sleep when he is freaking out. I guess these children are just not meant to sleep and we have to deal with it the best we can??
It's hard when they're so young, too. I knwo that they say you shouldn't put a TV on when a child can't sleep, because it just keeps them up, but I used to put a movie in for my son when he couldn't sleep. Preferably one he's seen a million times, and the same one every night. That way, he would lie in bed and watch it, but not feel the need to stay up to watch it, since he had already seen it so much. Now that he's older, he reads a book for an hour in bed, which makes him a little sleepier. Good luck!!-Munkies
This almost sounds like a terrible idea to me, but my mom just found some old pictures of me when I was that age, and I was passed out in bed with a book next to me that my mom had been reading me. I have no idea if this is even a possibility for your kid, but maybe worth a try? or maybe find something mildly productive that he could do all night, or until he feels like stopping. Some people just don't need much sleep, but you'll figure it out! Good luck!
-Tyler
Hello,

I'm new here, just found this forum, and since I also have a 12 yr old with sleeping problems (falling asleep only), I thought I'd share my experiences.

So far, nothing has worked for her

. She also sits in bed and reads or does word puzzles till 11:00, 12:00 at night and is a bear to get up in the morning. A few of you mentioned melatonin and Clonidine. A few words of caution:

Melatonin, while a natural product and being seemingly safe, does have it's drawback. When you supply a person with melatonin in form of a pill, ie, introduce it into the body from the outside source, it works great but only for a while because after a while the brain figures out that it gets it from outside and stops telling the body to make it. In time the natural production of melatonin in the body slows down dramatically which may be while some of you see that it doesn't work as well after a while.

My daughter's pediatrician also put her on Clonidine. I did a bit of research on it on the internet and found a few cases where kids were dying from it due to heart problems. A few cases were just too many for me so we decided not to give it to her. Please, always be careful and do your research before give kids any medicine.

My next thing is to get her a CD with wave sounds and play it for her at bed time...

Margaret.
My son was prescribed clonidine to help him sllep at night, now i want to take him off. Hes only been taking it for a month or so but its making me crazy!!!! Used to be he would get right up, get ready and now you have to drag him out of bed and i literally have to dress him. He fights me with doing anything now. Then i read the post about clonidine causing kids to die from heart problems, thats all i need to know. I dont know whats going with him anymore. I think its the clonidine making him like this. His psychiatrist wanted to give him a morning dose to because even though his Focaklin was increased he is still hyper as hell. I told her not too much at one time. Does he have to weined off the clonidine or can he stop cold turkey.An updated on our end ... My son was actually diagnosed not with ADD, as I had thought, but with Anxiety Disorder (the anxiety was making it impossible for him to pay attention in school because of all of the worried thoughts buzzing around in his head). The doctor put him on a VERY low dose of Zoloft around a year ago, and things have been 100% better. He is sleeping, not only thorough the night, but until around 8:00 a.m. (late for him!) and he is no longer anxious about school or unreasonably worried. His social skills have improved, too, which is nice. He's still an unorganized kid .. but I think that's just going to be his personality. :) Good luck to everyone!!

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