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SEND Parenting Podcast
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I am a mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast.
As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity, I have uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks.
Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade.
SEND Parenting Podcast
EP 134: ADHD and sleep struggles
Click here for the ADHD Sleep Guide - 30 days to better sleep
Sleep deprivation became our unwelcome companion for eleven long years. My daughter Alexandra would lie awake for hours, plagued by anxious thoughts that seemed to intensify as darkness fell. When sleep finally came, it was fragmented – she'd wake repeatedly, finding her way to my bed most nights seeking reassurance. For families navigating ADHD, this scenario might sound painfully familiar.
In this deeply personal conversation, Alexandra courageously shares what those nights felt like from her perspective: "Sleep was like a nightmare." She describes overwhelming anxiety that made sleepovers impossible, prevented me from having evenings out, and left us both perpetually exhausted. We candidly discuss how sleep deprivation amplified our challenges, leading to what Alexandra perfectly describes as "explosion time" – when our emotional regulation skills would crumble under the weight of fatigue.
The turning point in our journey came unexpectedly. After trying countless strategies, from elaborate bedtime routines to consultations with sleep specialists, we finally found our answer in prescription melatonin. Alexandra describes the transformation as nothing short of miraculous – from hours of bedtime struggles to falling asleep within minutes. We explore the complementary approaches that support her sleep hygiene now, including technology boundaries, weighted blankets, meditation, and Emotional Freedom Technique for anxiety. Most touchingly, Alexandra shares how quality sleep has expanded her world, enabling her to manage overnight stays and wake feeling "recharged and ready for the day."
Whether you're a parent, educator, or healthcare provider supporting a child with ADHD, this conversation offers both practical strategies and genuine hope. Download our free sleep resource sheet at sendparenting.com/sleep to begin implementing these life-changing techniques today. Because when sleep improves, everything else follows.
Click here for the ADHD Sleep Guide - 30 days to better sleep
www.sendparenting.com
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. Welcome back to the third part of the Alexandra ADHD August series.
Dr Olivia :We're diving today into the challenge that so many families face with their children, which is that of sleep. For children with ADHD, bedtime can feel like a nightly battle, from anxious thoughts and restless bodies to waking up again and again and again. It can leave everyone feeling exhausted. In this episode, alexandra and I will share what our nights used to look like, the turning points that made a difference, including melatonin, and how we finally began to reclaim our rest. If you or your child are struggling with sleepless nights, you're not alone, and there are ways forward. To help you start this journey, I've created a sleep sheet packed with practical strategies for better rest. You can download it now by visiting our website sendparentingcom. Forward slash sleep or by clicking the link in the show notes below.
Dr Olivia :So, alexandra, welcome back to our third part in this four-part series. I've been having a lot of great feedback from moms that your last two episodes have really been helpful and people have really enjoyed them. So I want to thank you for contributing so far and I'm really excited to talk about sleep today, because it really changed a lot in our lives. Can you remember what was sleep like for 11 years?
Alexandra :Sleep was like a nightmare because I would always wake up in the middle of the night. I would always go into your bedroom and go back to sleep in your bedroom and I would struggle having sleepovers with like other people.
Dr Olivia :Yeah, and what about going to bed too? How long did it take us to go to bed? Like about two hours.
Alexandra :Four hours.
Dr Olivia :And I mean, you would get really anxious and really worried wouldn't you?
Alexandra :And anxious, not about a certain thing, it would just be like anxious about it couldn't have to be about a whole randomized thing would make me anxious about anything.
Dr Olivia :Lots of worries, yeah, and if mommy wanted to go out at night to?
Alexandra :get a babysitter? Yeah, no.
Dr Olivia :And what would happen if, let's say, your grandfather came to try and babysit you?
Alexandra :Horrible, because he's not that patient of people, so he would just want me to he once I remembered, remembered he wanted me to he. I wasn't going to sleep, so he wanted me to stay up and waited for you to get back because I wasn't going to sleep.
Dr Olivia :Yeah, he called me and he basically said he's he quits as a babysitter because you were. You would start to worry that mommy was not going to be okay and you had all sorts of dark thoughts, huh, like really dark thoughts. And we tried everything. I, you know, we did a bedtime routine. Um, we tried. We contacted that psychiatrist in America with a sleep hero. We tried everything. I mean, honestly, you slept in my bed until you were about 11 most of the time, and when you slept in my bed you were better sleeping, weren't you?
Alexandra :Yeah, because I knew that you were right by me. So if something would happen, I would know that you were safe, right by me.
Dr Olivia :Yeah, and that's also why mommy got an alarm system, wasn't it so that you felt safer?
Alexandra :Yeah, because my bedroom was right outside, like outside of the road, so I thought someone was going to climb up the window and hurt me when I was sleeping.
Dr Olivia :Yeah, so a lot of thoughts and it didn't go really well and you know what was really weird is what you know like. So both of us weren't getting good night's sleep. I mean it was really weird is what you know like. So both of us weren't getting good night's sleep, so I mean it would take about two hours on average to get you to go to sleep. You're going to sleep right now.
Alexandra :That's great.
Dr Olivia :And then you'd wake up several times a night, which is why mommy often just for us to get a good night's. Will she ever, and you know how, will I ever be able to have a babysitter? So maybe mommy could go out in the evening. It all seemed like it was never, ever, ever, ever. We weren't ever going to solve it is what it felt like to me.
Dr Olivia :I remember saying to you like I was jealous of other people who's like oh, our baby's sleep through the night. I'm like my daughter's 11 and she's still not sleeping through the night. But you couldn't help it, could you?
Alexandra :Yeah, I couldn't help it. And then we just thought that it was just that she wasn't Our normal.
Dr Olivia :And then the next day. What is it like when you and I don't have enough sleep?
Alexandra :Nightmare.
Dr Olivia :A nightmare? Yeah, because what happens when we don't get enough sleep?
Alexandra :Angry, a nightmare, yeah, because what happens when we don't get enough sleep. Angry, a lot of tears. And our tolerance is really low yeah.
Dr Olivia :And if we're both tired, it's even worse, isn't it? Explosion time. So, it makes life, as we like to say, worse. Huh, yeah, yeah, it does so. Do you remember when we first tried melatonin and I I honestly I had no great hopes. I was like, yeah right, this melatonin stuff is gonna work. What did you think? Yeah, right what yeah were you, did you think it would work?
Alexandra :I didn't really well.
Dr Olivia :No, I don't know but we tried it and we got. So it was prescribed to us from the clinical psychiatrist. So it was a short acting and long acting, which meant that it would help you to go to sleep and it would help you stay asleep. And the first time it would help you stay asleep and the first time we tried it.
Alexandra :You were asleep within 20 minutes 10 minutes, I know You're right.
Dr Olivia :Maybe it was even less. I actually came back to make sure you were alive. Do you remember that? Well, you obviously were asleep.
Alexandra :I was asleep.
Dr Olivia :But then it kept. So tell us like, what was it like once we started taking melatonin it?
Alexandra :was so much easier to get to sleep. It was so much easier to stay asleep, and then it was so much easier going up stairs and I would already, when we were watching TV, be yawning and getting tired. And when my head hit that pillow it was really you were ready for bed.
Dr Olivia :Yeah, it was, I have to say, life-changing, life-changing. And then we'd wake up the next day not tired, recharged and ready for the day recharged and ready for the day. I like that. And then what happens when we forgot the melatonin?
Alexandra :well, we wouldn't really, because we would set an Alexa reminder but when we did forget it.
Dr Olivia :I remember when we forgot it and we go upstairs and I was like wait a minute, because we'd been going for so long doing so well, and I was like this reminds me, why are you so anxious? Why aren't we able to go to sleep? And I was like, oh no, we forgot the melatonin, so we had to take the melatonin. Then we set the alexa so what does alexis tell us to do every night?
Alexandra :alexa, take your movical and melatonin yeah which is my other medication, your fiber medication.
Dr Olivia :Yeah, after your gut. But I mean, and it's, it's pretty amazing, we take it like an hour, hour and a half before bedtime and five early, yeah, six o'clock, and then it, it kicks in and it works and it's brilliant. And then also now can your grandfather babysit you.
Alexandra :Yes, can other people babysit you.
Dr Olivia :Other people can babysit me as well because you know you can go to sleep. Sometimes you wake up, we all do.
Alexandra :But even the other night you woke up and went back to sleep yeah, I left my bed and I was like, okay, as usual, I'm going into my mummy's bed.
Dr Olivia :And then I, and I don't know why, but I just paused and I just thought about it and then I it was like I was sleepwalking, because I basically turned around and went back to bed and I went back to sleep yeah, and, and I mean it is I, I, uh, I can't begin to say how much it's changed my life, because I also need sleep, just like you do, and then also being able to go out and do some stuff that mommy wants to do has been really, um, opened up my life a lot, because I couldn't leave you. I was always worried to leave you by yourself and it always worried me. And now I know, oh, alexandra's got got this, she can go to sleep and stay asleep. Yeah, anything that you would say to other kids who struggle with sleep try to take melatonin, because it really helps um and we still do all the other stuff we still get ready for bed.
Dr Olivia :We have um.
Alexandra :We have a routine we sometimes read stories yeah, we read a story in bed, um no, looking at the iphone like yeah, that's true so after dinner we don't have any devices, do we?
Dr Olivia :because that? Stimulates our brain unless you, unless you sneak them. Yeah, for those of you who can't see her face, right now she's got a very cheeky expression on her face because she does sometimes try to steal that device. But we try and calm our brains down before we go to bed and then we have a great meditation, don't we?
Alexandra :Yeah, by Elaine Martin. We have to be very Strict, strict with it and we have to say Alexa Hayley Martin on Spotify, otherwise it will play something random really weird, but she's good and she's got good stories and it kind of calms.
Dr Olivia :And it's the same thing every night and you've got a weighted blanket as well. How does the weighted blanket make you feel?
Alexandra :calm and cosy inside and makes me just fall asleep.
Dr Olivia :And that's hard to use in the summer when it's hot, but we've used it a lot in the winter. And then the other thing, the other big thing that I think has been really helpful is tapping. You know when we do it's called emotional freedom technique. Describe that. I'll describe it. So I tap on certain points, but how does it feel when I do that?
Alexandra :It's like one moment I'm really anxious about something and the next I'm like I remember you saying to me is this magic, mummy? Yeah, because I didn't even know that it would be. It's kind of weird that it works, isn't it yeah?
Dr Olivia :Why does tapping on your head in different points relax you?
Dr Olivia :But, it really does. So I mean, we use those things as well. So it's not just melatonin, but melatonin was the big thing that kind of really really helped, I think, for us. But we still do the other things as well. So I think you know, if you haven't and I have to say we did try, because melatonin is prescription only in the UK, but in Europe and America you can buy it over the counter and I had bought it over the counter with some drops but that didn't work as well. So really getting the prescription one that was the short and fast acting and then getting that advice, we're only on two milligrams, which is pretty low dose of it and it works really well. Um, did you take any for lunch seem?
Dr Olivia :to be falling asleep there is uh, you know, and it it kind of wasn't your fault that you were feeling so anxious before you go to sleep was it yeah?
Dr Olivia :yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that it's changed our lives and I'm glad we got to share this with people, because it was an 11-year struggle actually finding a way to get you to sleep. Now, next week is our last episode in this series, alexandra, and then soon you'll be going back to school. Woo-woo, are you excited about that? Year nine? It's a big year, and that kind of brings us into our last topic as well, which we're going to be talking about friendships, rejections, big emotions and kind of, socially, what it feels like to have ADHD sometimes. Yeah, so it'll be kind of a good last episode before you dive back into the social scene at school. So I want to say a big thank you to you for coming. See you next time. Bye, thank you for listening. Send Parenting Tribe.
Dr Olivia :Sleep can really feel like an endless struggle. I know I've been there and it can be awful. It's just really hard to sometimes find the solutions that you really need. But every small step towards better rest matters and it starts with understanding the different things that are available to you. So if you're ready to try some new strategies tonight, remember to grab your free sleep sheet. It's filled with practical tips and gentle tools that can help make bedtime less stressful and more restful for the whole family. You can download it at S E N D parentingcom. Forward slash sleep or simply click on the show notes below.