8 year old insomnia

[Alexigail]

Thoughts?  My 8 year old has a hard time falling asleep.  He goes to bed around 8:30 and sometimes can't sleep until midnight.  We've tried melatonin, letting him read, relaxation techniques etc.  Sometimes it works and he's out like a light, others he lays awake for hours.  I do remember having the same trouble at that age and I think there may be an anxiety component.  

If he does fall asleep late, he naturally wakes around 9 or 9:30, which means he'll get about 9-10 hours.  I'm not really worried about him getting enough sleep, but he's upset that he can't sleep at night and it really interferes with "alone time" between my husband and I since our rooms are adjacent.  That's not the main concern, but it is a concern.  

What would you do in this situation?  Would you give him things to do at night?  Keep putting him to bed to try to form good habits?  

I'm a little lost.

[skimomma]

My 12 yo has struggled with insomnia for her whole life.  She only slept for 9 hours of her first 24, for instance.  So really, from birth.  The day she could read chapter books on her own was the best day of my life!  We have tried everything under the sun short of pharmaceutical meds, including acupuncture, chiropractic, melatonin, meditation, etc......  It does not matter how tired or not she is or how late/early she starts the process, it takes hours for her to fall asleep.  Around age 8 we started giving her ways to cope with that empty time.  Laying there awake for hours is hard enough for an adult.  I think it is almost torture for a kid.  She is allowed (and encouraged) to read, listen to music, or anything else as long as she stays in her room with the lights low and remains relatively calm so that sleep can find her eventually.  She does sleep later than her peers and is often still in deep sleep when the school bus goes by (yay for homeschooling) but we do wake her by 8am since she has activities that start soon after.  Left to her own devises, she will sleep until after noon.  So I know she is not getting enough sleep on a regular basis.  This bothers me but we have to work with what we have.  As she gets more independent in her studies, I would like to help her transition to using that sleepless time constructively which will allow her to sleep later in the morning.  At this point though, we are just trying to make it as "not a big deal" as possible so the stress of not sleeping does not cause further sleep loss.  She started going to summer camp last year and that was a big challenge since she is not allowed to do anything after lights out.  So far the pros outweigh the cons for her and she deals, but I'm not sure I would be OK with it.  Sleepovers are not part of her life, unfortunately. 

[Katy]

Get a couple lower watt bulbs or dimmer lights.  Turn the lights down an hour before bed.

 

Put a dim but bright enough to read light near his bed.  If he can't sleep, it's okay for him to read quietly in bed. If you can afford to get him an amber-light kindle, you can try that.  It's quite normal to have changes in sleep patterns as he approaches puberty, and even more normal to shift sleeping to later in the day.  He's getting enough sleep, it's simply later.  If you're homeschooling, that's fine.

 

As for alone time, the easiest thing to do is shift your alone times to early in the morning when everyone is sleeping.  If that doesn't work for some reason you could also put a TV in DS's room.  Not ideal, but it is noisy enough.  Another option is changing your mattress.  Brands that are made from foam instead of springs don't squeak.