It is eleven o’clock at night. You have been up and down the stairs three times. Your child is still awake, still calling out, still not settling. You are exhausted. And tomorrow it will happen all over again.
If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. Children can experience insomnia too, and their sleepless nights affect the whole family. Watching a child struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep night after night is both draining and worrying. And when it goes on for weeks or months, it begins to affect everything, their mood, their learning, their behaviour, and your own ability to cope.
The good news is that childhood insomnia is well understood and, with the right approach, it responds well to support. But first it helps to understand what is actually driving it.
What causes insomnia in children?
Insomnia in children rarely has one single cause. In most cases it is a combination of factors working together. Common contributing causes include:
Anxiety and stress. Worries about school, friendships, or family life can fill a child’s mind at night when the distractions of the day fall away. As a result, anxiety and insomnia feed each other in a cycle that can be very hard to break without support. Nighttime fears are a particularly common driver of sleep difficulties in younger children. You can read more about that here. You can also read more about what is happening in your child’s nervous system when anxiety takes over in my free guide Understanding Your Child’s Guard Dog Brain.
Irregular sleep routines. Inconsistent bedtimes confuse the body’s internal clock. Consequently it becomes harder for a child to feel reliably sleepy at the same time each night.
Sleep associations. Some children learn to fall asleep only under specific conditions, with a parent present, being rocked, or listening to music. However when those conditions are not present at two in the morning, they wake and struggle to resettle. This is one of the most common causes of insomnia related night waking.
Diet and stimulation. Caffeine, hidden in chocolate, fizzy drinks, and some teas, stays in a child’s system much longer than most parents realise. In addition, screen time before bed interferes with melatonin production, making it harder for the body to feel sleepy. Both are worth addressing as part of any insomnia plan.
Physical conditions and sleep
It is also worth considering whether a physical condition might be contributing to your child’s insomnia. Asthma symptoms often worsen at night, causing coughing and breathing difficulties that disrupt sleep. Eczema and other skin conditions can cause intense itching that makes settling and staying asleep very difficult. Restless leg syndrome, an uncomfortable sensation in the legs that creates an urge to move, is often missed in children and mistaken for growing pains or restlessness. And sleep apnoea, where breathing is repeatedly interrupted during sleep, causes frequent micro arousals that leave a child exhausted despite apparently sleeping through.
If your child has any of these conditions and is also sleeping poorly, it is always worth discussing with your GP whether the two are connected. Treating the underlying physical condition often improves sleep significantly without any other intervention needed.
Medication. Some medications, including certain ADHD medications, antidepressants, and cold remedies, can increase alertness and contribute to insomnia as a side effect. If you have recently started a new medication and sleep has worsened, it is worth mentioning to your GP.
What helps
Consistent routine and sleep cues
The most important foundation for addressing childhood insomnia is a consistent, calming bedtime routine that happens in the same order every night. These repeated steps become what are called sleep cues, signals the nervous system learns to recognise as meaning safety is coming and it is time to let go. A warm bath, a story, a quiet moment together. Keep it simple and no longer than about thirty five minutes. Furthermore, the more predictable the routine the more quickly the body learns to prepare for sleep before the lights even go down.
For older children and teenagers it will look different. A shower, an audiobook, ten minutes of quiet. It does not need to be elaborate. It just needs to be theirs and consistent.
Sleep environment
The bedroom should be cool, dark, and associated with sleep rather than activity. Blackout curtains help considerably. A small amber nightlight is fine if needed. However screens should not be in the bedroom as they signal wakefulness to the brain rather than rest.
Screen time
Reduce screens in the hour before bed where you can. If that is not immediately possible, start with ten minutes and gradually reduce. It also matters what your child is watching. Something intense or frightening lights up the imagination just at the moment you need it to settle. In contrast, quiet activities like colouring or a simple jigsaw have a naturally calming effect on the nervous system.
Caffeine
Check what your child is eating and drinking in the hours before bed. Caffeine blocks the signal that tells the body it is ready for sleep, and children metabolise it more slowly than adults. As a result it stays in their system far longer than most parents realise. Chocolate, fizzy drinks, energy drinks, and some teas all contain it.
Social jet lag
Try to keep sleep and wake times consistent across the week, including weekends. When teenagers sleep in significantly at weekends and then have to wake early on Monday, it creates what researchers call social jet lag, a mismatch between the body’s internal clock and social demands. Consequently this makes Monday mornings genuinely harder and compounds insomnia across the week.
Relaxation and managing difficult thoughts
Simple breathing before sleep can help calm an anxious mind. In for four counts, hold for four, out for six. If breathing feels too hard, try humming or singing, because when we hum we have to breathe, and children often find it much more natural than formal breathing exercises.
Worries that feel manageable during the day can feel enormous at night. Therefore creating a worry time earlier in the day, fifteen minutes to talk or write down concerns, means they have somewhere to go before bedtime. Worries spoken in the light are smaller than worries that surface alone in the dark.
For older children, challenging negative thoughts around sleep can help. For example replacing I will never fall asleep with even if I do not fall asleep straight away I will still get some rest shifts the relationship with sleep from something threatening to something manageable. You can read more about managing negative thinking in children here.
Sleep associations and independence
If your child can only fall asleep with you present, gradual withdrawal can help address this aspect of insomnia. Move a little further from the bed each night. Introduce comforting check-ins, returning after two minutes, then five, then ten. Each return teaches them something important. You said you would come back and you did. That is felt safety being built one small step at a time.
A bedtime pass is particularly helpful for younger children who come out of bed repeatedly. Make a small card together that your child keeps under their pillow. It gives them one visit out of bed for one specific reason. Moreover a small reward in the morning if they use it only once or not at all reinforces the new pattern positively.
ADHD and insomnia
For children with ADHD, insomnia is particularly common. Research suggests around seventy percent of children with ADHD experience significant sleep difficulties. Bedtime resistance, difficulty switching off, and delayed sleep onset are all characteristic. As a result, standard advice does not always work for these children and a more tailored approach is needed.
Bedtime fading, starting from the time your child is naturally falling asleep and moving it gradually earlier by fifteen minutes every few nights, is one of the most effective approaches for ADHD related insomnia. Working with the nervous system rather than against it makes an enormous difference.
You can read more about ADHD and sleep specifically in my free guide When Darkness Comes which has a dedicated section on this.
When to seek support
If insomnia has been present for some time month or more, is affecting your child’s mood, behaviour, or ability to function at school, or if anxiety is clearly driving the difficulty, please do seek support. The earlier insomnia is addressed the easier it is to shift.
CBT for insomnia is well evidenced for older children and young people. For younger children, play therapy, sand play, and parent focused work are often more appropriate and equally effective.
If you are not sure where to start, come and talk to me. You do not have to have it all figured out before you reach out.
Interested in working with me
I offer sleep consultations for children and families where anxiety, ADHD, or emotional difficulties are part of the sleep picture. This is not just about sleep hygiene. It is about understanding what the nervous system needs to feel safe enough to rest.
If you would like to find out more, please do get in touch via my contact page.
Free resources
Understanding Your Child’s Guard Dog Brain explains what is happening in your child’s nervous system when anxiety and big feelings take over.
Holding in the Storm is about staying steady as a parent in the hard moments.
When Darkness Comes goes deep into children’s sleep, from the nervous system to practical tools, including a dedicated section on ADHD and sleep.
All free to download.
And if you would like occasional guidance and support straight to your inbox, you are very welcome to join my newsletter.
With warmth,
Catherine
