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[quote=Anonymous]My DD is like this and has honestly been like this since she was very little.  Her circadian rhythms are just different.  It is very hard for her to fall asleep before 1 a.m., especially since she's gets very creative and energetic around 11 p.m., like a second wind.

She eats very healthy, she's a dancer, and she loves to draw and write.  I could take away all the electronics and maybe even all of her drawing stuff, and she would still be practicing dance moves in her room, or even just coloring in one of her adult coloring books.  I used to even force her to do lights-out and she would lay awake tossing and turning for hours.

It began to be a real problem, however, when she began developing depression in 7th grade, and she was getting less and less sleep (often staying up too late doing HW in a magnet program).  She was waking up nauseous every single day and I could tell it was from a lack of sleep – it was happening on weekends too when she would do sleepovers and stay up all night.

We started working on a plan such that she was up at a reasonable hour every day, even on weekends, and then we started giving her a tiny dose of melatonin (5 mg).  It made her sleepy within half an hour of taking it, and I started making sure she was in bed no later than 11:30.  Pretty soon she stopped needing it.

The toughest part was actually preventing her from coming home exhausted from school and taking a nap – a huge no-no, so definitely don't start that cycle!  She would want to nap for three hours and then she felt like being up until 1 a.m.  Did not want to start that up again.

Some days it is still very difficult.  During the summer, I have let things go a bit.  But it has never gone back to being quite as extreme as it was.[/quote]

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