[KarenInCa]

My daughter cannot sleep at night until she is exhausted.
Her original bed time was 8:30 pm, then we changed the clocks to appear to be 1/2 hour later than it was, but that didn't convince her it was time for bed.
Eventually, we changed her bedtime to 9 pm, then 9:30. Now it's around 9:30-10 pm....and even at that, she tends to stay up in her room, tip toeing around. A lot of times, she does not get to sleep till midnight. Strangely, it does not effect her behavior during the day, as she is a very easy going child, and smiles often and easily. Sometimes I have to rock her to sleep still, and she resists sleep even then, like someone resisting the flu.
She just does not like to sleep. She's not scared of her bedroom. She shows no signs of ADD, which tends to be associated with insomnia in children.

I'm beginning to think that she has insomnia associated with life in an orphanage till she was 16 months old. Obviously, her needs were not met at night as a baby, as would normally be the case for a baby, and I really wonder if sleep = alone = fear of not getting needs met-for her, and if her basic needs not being met back then is effecting her still at almost 4 yrs old.
I don't know if any info is out there about insomnia with children who spent time in SWIs. I know night terrors are talked about, and that children can become easily frightened at her age anyway (almost 4 yrs old). But does anyone know if insomnia has been studied in children who spent a larger part of their their babyhood to toddler in an orphanage?

[specialk4b]

OMG!!! You've described our situation exactly! Our little guy will happily go to bed, read books, say prayers and sing songs. Then he says "No night night" and rolls around on the bed for 30-60 minutes until he finally just falls asleep. We've moved bedtime back to nearly 10:00 some nights and he still stays awake for that long.

He was in foster care and was adopted at 30 months. so I don't know if that played a part.

Sorry, that didn't give you any insight, but at least we're not alone!

[Lissa]

Astra, I wrote you on the other forum we frequent. I do not know if there is any specific orphanage related research, but I do know there is a lot of childhood sleep disorder research to be found as I lived with sleep disorders most of my life. I would take Cady to a sleep clinic asap. Simple, yet effective solutions are available depending upon the cause of her disorder.


Karen, what I wrote on the other forum had to do with my breathing issues as a child. Is it possible Micah (I hope I spelled that right. If not I apologize for misspelling your beautiful son's name.) is having breathing problems due to his cleft palate? I would talk to his doctor and surgeon and make them aware of the problem as it could be related to his sleep problems.

It's important to get it checked out. There are some recent studies that link childhood sleep disorders with adult onset type 2 diabeties.

[Tudu]

I am stepping in and hope you don't mind. I have several children that I adopted through foster care and independent adoptions, a few of them have sleep issues. I have suffered with insomnia as long as I can remember and have tried numerous over the counter and prescription medications. Many of us on the Special Needs Adoption Forum here have children with sleep issues and someone suggested Melatonin. There has been studies done on it and there are no side effects for children or adults, it is something the body produces naturally. It works. You can buy it at any drug store or Walmart, it runs between $3.50 to $7. Ask you Ped. about it, look it up online. My younger children take 3MG, they do not feel high, they just start yawning about 20 minutes later. Studies have been done on up to 9 MG for children with no issues at all.

[specialk4b]

Lissa, you spelled his name perfectly. The doctors don't think it's a breathing problem or ear problem. Of course right now he's got a lot of swelling because of the surgery on his palate. Once his palate has healed, we'll bring it back up with the ENT to see if there's a breathing issue. I had no idea about the link to diabetes. I've suffered insomnia myself at some level most of my life, including during childhood.

[Lissa]

When I say it's new research about the diabeties, I really meant it. It just came out. My doctor and I are keeping up closely with the research as I am considering Lap Band surgery to rid myself of diabeties. 80% of type 2 diabetics are experiencing recovery from the condition after GB surgery and close to the same number with Lap Banding. As I would like to go back to China to adopt. I am staying very "on top" of the research right now. :-)

[specialk4b]

Oh I hope you have great success. How wonderful it would be for you to go back to China!

[KarenInCa]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to research melatonin, possibly in chewable form.
LOL tonight she fell asleep at 8pm sharp.....always seems to happen. Just as I start to really worry, she changes course.

[ddahl]

Hopping in from the Russia forum. My DS came home at 18 months and had no sleep issues excet the finger sucking and self soothing (hands in mouth) for about 3 weeks. Flash forward to two months home and he slept like a champ. He is now 4.5 and at age 3.5 I became a SAHM and our sleep issues really started. I have always had a pretty set bedtime routine (dinner, bath, stories, prayers rocking as a baby then cuddling as an older toddler sing lullaby then say good noght kiss and close the door) but with me not having to get up at 6:00 a.m. I pushed the bedtime back till 8:00 p.m.. and casually let it go to 9:00 and 9:30.

What I have found in our case is that DS needs more sleep but actually appears to not need need more. He is a happy guy with 6 hours or 14 hours. The problem is he needs the restorative sleep and frankly so do Daddy and I. I moved the bedtime back to 8:00 and we are firm about it. He fights sleep every night and cries and carries on in a dramatic display of fake tears with the most unbelievable smile that peeks through just to see if its working about every 4 nights. I think at his age he is trying to see if we are going to follow through.

I got the advice of backing down the bedtime from another AP who went through the same thing. We are so happy it worked in our case too. I am totally an 8 hour a night girl so DS not sleeping was really hard on me not so much on DH who can easily get by on 6 hours. We found a nice balance that left us quality of time to just have mommy and daddy time or time to ourselves without DS being up till 11 p.m..

Good luck with everything! Hugs!