Question: My daughter at 18 months old was awake for 36 hours straight when I took her to the pediatrician literally exhausted to tears. She could not sleep. However, she was very content, and happily enjoying her surroundings. No matter what I did she was bright eyed and bushy tailed.
We developed a sleep routine for her and started melatonin at the suggestion of her pediatrician. The melatonin worked for a while. Periodically, we tried to wean her off the melatonin, but we never could keep her off it totally. Now to move ahead seven years to now.She is nine years old now. We have carefully kept her monitored through her pediatrician and almost all medications they have tried do not work. She has tried Benadryl, Clonidine, and Trazadone. However, she still cannot get to sleep. Once she gets too sleepy, she can *usually* stay sleeping. My daughter can function on five hours of sleep. She gets up at 7 AM for school and sometimes will not fall to sleep that night until 2 AM. I don’t know how she manages. She has no behavioral issues at school. She gets mostly A’s in school. Her teachers find her to be a conscientious, well-mannered student. She is also very pleasant at home. She simply cannot sleep. She has seen a psych specialist and had testing done. The doctors state she suffers anxiety and worries about things too much. She also sees a therapist for relaxation techniques and for help decreasing her worries. The lack of sleep does not effect her mood, her grades, nor her functioning in anyway. I find this very baffling. And the fact its been ongoing (off and on) since she was a toddler is even more confusing for me. There’s got to be an answer.Any help would be appreciated.