9 Year old girl cannot get to sleep

[nw29]

My 9 year old daughter started having problems getting to sleep over the last 2 months.  She goes to bed on time and after about 30 minutes will come find me and be hysterical that she cannot go to sleep.  We've suggested reading a book for 15-30 minutes or listening to soothing music in her room, but nothing has worked.  I'm not so worried about her lack of sleep, but the way that she becomes hysterical crying and worrying that she will be tired the next day.  She begs me to tell her something to think of that will make her go to sleep.  This hysteria, of course, keeps her from going to sleep.  The process of getting to sleep can take over 2 hours some nights and I'm getting short on patience dealing with her.  Any ideas on what could be causing this new problem?

[margypops]

Its always good to get her checked out, does she watch any scary movies, that any older relative may have on , can you think of anything may have frightened her,. Did this start suddenly or has she been doing it for a while , would there have a been a trigger point to the behavior?

[mominCT221]

My daughter is going on 9. She cries for hours.  She tells me that she thinks about what will happen at bed time every night.  She does not know why she is crying.  I will be taking her to her doc next week. I have a feeling that hormones have something to do with it.  

[chapmanmum]

My daughter was exactly the same it sounds like you are talking about her!! We had a lot of horrible nights where she would get up numerous times to tell me she cant fall asleep. Im not kidding this went on for years and it gor worse. She is now 9 also. She is an axious child although she is getting much better as she ages. I gotr so mad every night when she wouldnt go to sleep and wouldnt help herself to get to sleep, like listening to music or thinking of nice things she was going to do the next day. Anyway I went and seen a doc about this and he said she was doing it for attention as I have 2 other younger children and she must feel that this is the only time of the day she can get some attention from me.
We then did a sleeping chart. Every night she went to sleep without getting out of bed she got a star. If she went to sleep say 5 nights in a row without bothering me she would get a small suprise or something we have agreed on. This seems to be working very well. Just an idea for you to think about. Any way good luck.

[FromRachael]

I am sorry that you are experiencing those issues.  I have experienced the same thing my self with my nine year old son.  I finally had to explain to him in terms that he would understand it, that he just had to be patient.

This is what I told him and it seemed to work:        
        "You can't expect to just lay there for a few minutes and go to sleep right then.  You have to be patient and not get upset. So calm down everything will be alright.  If you get upset then it will make things worse.  It just means that you aren't that tired and you have to make yourself relax from an exciting day and the anticipation of what will happen tomorrow.  Just lay here and relax and if your not asleep in thirty minutes I will come back and talk to you some more."

Hope this helps,
From Rachael

[raindelay]

Are you my wife writing this?  Our daughter is having the same difficulties and from your description I would swear we have the same kid.  We're in the middle of this fiasco ourselves.  In fact, my wife is upstairs laying down with her now; last night it was my turn.

We never had to do this before.  She's always gone to bed well and all of the sudden we're dealing with a frantic kid who's afraid to be alone in her room.  

At first we were livid and barked at her a bit.  But, after a night or so I started thinking about the fact that to her the reality is she is scared.  So, we're taking it a bit easy but night after night applying a new rule.  For example, at earlier this week she would come down around 12am and climb into bed with us.  We've never been the "jump on in" kind of parents so this was new.  Now though we tell her that she can sleep in our room but has to bring her pillow and blanket to sleep on the floor.  It's a bit tough but I think it's better than the big stick all at once approach.  

We've also ended any TV, sweets, and sleepovers under the guise that we want her to feel better first.  She's starting to tire of not getting an after dinner treat like her sisters and had to tell a good friend yesterday that she couldn't spend the night.  We can see she's starting to see that this thing is not fun.  Eventually I'm convinced that her brain will finally tell her that it's not worth it and she'll calm down.

Our daughter is not normally nervous but she does 'fear' a lot of things.  She's not OCD but she worries about sharks, tornadoes, and other things that kids worry about.  Nothing too extreme.

I'd be interested in what works for you as you have posted exactly what is happening in our house these last couple of weeks.

Good luck and good sleeping!!!