REPOSTED DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES:
Waking up in the morning on time is the hardest thing to do every morning! My ADHD son has trouble falling a sleep even with medication. So getting up early is like pulling teeth.

Every night we first try to do some “heavy work” (jumping on the trampoline, playing tag, ride on bikes, swimming). For 20 minutes.

Second we eat dinner.

Third take a warm bubble bath. 

Making sure we have a full belly and last drink of milk.

We try to set the tone of the house by turning off the lights, TVs and try reading books & magazines.

It is not always the answer but a routine or schedule works best with most kids.

Jackie S.
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REPOSTED FOR USER unimom31 DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
My daughter has the same sleep issues.  For the second half of the school year we moved her alarm clock (a sonic bomb clock) to the other side of her room.  She often forgets to set it, so I go in her room in the morning, set the alarm, and then leave.  She has to get out of her bed to turn it off.  We usually have to do this several times, but it takes my nagging out of the equation and seems to be an easier way for both of us to get her out of bed.  She has dramatically decreased her tardiness on school days!

REPOSTED DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES FOR USER kmedon:
Sleep is a constant struggle at our house. My daughter has a natural clock of midnight til 9am. That of course is not conducive to school hours as a 4th grader. Things we do are no caffeine after dinner, warm relaxing baths, an established bed time and routine. It is better than before but not great. Mornings are better as well. Last school year she missed the bus 4 out of 5 days. This year we have only missed the bus maybe a dozen times. She has a hard time waking up even after sleeping throughout the night. We are utilizing a picture schedule with a timer to get her out the door each day. She is rewarded when she makes the bus, when she doesn’t Mom is not required to do any of the fun things she likes to do in the evenings since when she misses the bus, Mom is late for work. Would love any other tips that others use.

My daughter and I are both ADD so it makes it very challenging.  Typically about 30 minutes before bedtime she gets very hyper.  To help her calm down, i have her focus her energy on thinking and she draws out stories for me on her large dry erase boards in her room.  It helps her stay in one spot and slow down.  She also has a small fish tank and lava lamp in her room that serves as her night light and has a calming effect. 

We have not had any luck with morning routines yet.  She is 10 years old and will still sleep thru her alarm clock that is literally just a few feet from her head.  I usually get tired of hearing it go off (on the other side of the house) and have to go in and wake her up. Once awake, she still requires constant attention in order to get her up and ready to go on time.  She has a hard time waking up and even harder time with time management, staying on task, understanding how long each task will take and being ready on time. Long hard lessons to learn for the individual with ADD!

I do not have a child, with or without ADD. Dealing with my own sleep issues is quite enough challenge.

One thing that I think has helped is background noise. My wife came into the marriage with a habit of listening to some very soft kind of music to help her sleep. It helps me too. We currently use Native American flute music, but anything that covers up the small noises of our city without itself engaging our attention would do the job.

I also stop any vigorous activity at least an hour before bedtime. That’s common advice, but easy to forget.

The other thing that comes to mind is stabilizing my sugar before I go to sleep. I eat a moderate amount of something that is primarily protein or fat (not carbohydrates) an hour or less before I lie down. If not, I’ll wake up around 2 or 3 a.m. I am aware that some diet gurus frown on such a habit, but I don’t care. I need my sleep.

The technique that I use often for falling asleep is related to my love for poetry. Sometimes, I read a short poem a few times till I can remember it by heart. Then, when I lay down to sleep, I can read the poem to myself in my head repeatedly. Because I’m enjoying it, it doesn’t seem tedious, and because poetry is rythmic in nature, repetition of it helps to soothe the mind. I generally fall asleep after a few repetitions. This only works if I really like the poem. This technique is better than reading because there is no light to be turned off, and my eyes are already closed.

Peace and quiet and wind down time make or break my day or night. I go to bed after boyfriend and get up before him. The dogs being hyper, worrisome, or not being able to get my covers or anything can ruin me being dead tired and make it hard to go to sleep. Chaos is best avoided at night or in morning. I am pregnant and unmedicated so have no motivation much. Hope it gets better.

Going to sleep for my 12 yr old son usually involves passing out with the radio on. He loves music. When I wake him up he is a yeller and doesn’t wake up . I found that sending my six year to get him up works well. sometimes his brother would crawl into his bed and being a loving brother my 12 yr old would snuggle him and try to comfort him and get him to go back to sleep or find out what was wrong.so now my six year old crawls into bed and snuggles with him. When the 12yr old asks him whats wrong , my six yr tells him its time to get up . For whatever sense of brotherly love, he never yells at the 6 yr old and gets up pretty calmly. I have also had sucess with our cats , by putting them next to him and petting them they rub my son, and he wakes up calmly to pet them….and then once he opens his is he wakes up calmly.

I read in bed at night to make me sleepy, although it may backfire if the book is so interesting that all of a sudden it’s 3 a.m…. My goal is to get off the computer (any screen) an hour before I need to go to sleep, to help my brain “shut down.”  Doesn’t always work.  I sometimes set an alarm to tell me to get offline, sometimes I ignore the alarm.  To wake up, I set the loudest alarm I could buy - electric so it doesn’t stop - and have it in the kitchen so I have to walk to go turn it off.  I also set about 6 alarms for myself on my cell phone, plus two battery alarm clocks in my bedroom.  As a last resort, I’ll set the alarm I have on the computer and select a real obnoxious sound (a vintage car horn) and crank up the volume.  Believe me, that gets me out of bed!

For me to wind down, I listen to a calm audiobook that I am very, very familiar with. Yeah, I’m in my 40’s and listen to a bedtime story every night. Mostly a book from the Chronicles of Narnia. It helps my wife sleep too, so it works well for us. Okay, you can stop snickering now. If it works, it works

I don’t think it’s the act of listening to an audiobook as much as it is performing a nightly ritual. If it’s a book that I’m not familiar with, I could be up half the night listening to it. However, since I’m so very familiar with the Narnia stories, they are cue to my brain that it’s time to sleep.