Understanding Sleep

If your child is still wide awake at 10 o’clock at night, bouncing off the walls —

— and you’ve started wondering what you’re doing wrong —

I want to stop you right there.

You are very likely not doing anything wrong.

Hi, I’m Dr Harry Woodward. I’m a consultant paediatrician, and I spend my working life

meeting families who are exhausted by sleep. This is video one of eight in the Sleep Confidence Wheel — eight areas that can make sleep harder for neurodivergent children,

and eight places you can start making things better. You don’t need all eight. Just find the

one that sounds like your child.

This one’s about how sleep actually works.

I want to reassure you straight away.

Children are not bad sleepers.

Children experience barriers to sleep.

And if we can understand those barriers, we can often make real, meaningful improvements.

Let me tell you about a family I met.

Mum said: “Doctor, he just never seems tired.”

Awake all day. Busy all evening. And at 10 o’clock at night — still bouncing round the house,

still going, like the day hadn’t touched him at all.

She said it almost apologetically. Like she was confessing something. Like it was something

she’d done.

So — genuine question.

If a child is exhausting to look after, tired you out completely, and is still wide awake at 10pm

— whose fault is that, really?

This wasn’t bad parenting. This was a child with ADHD whose body clock simply worked

differently.

Once that family understood that — they stopped blaming themselves, and started working

with his biology instead of against it.

There are two systems worth knowing about.

The first is sleep pressure. From the moment we wake, our brain gradually builds pressure

to sleep. The longer we’re awake, the greater that pressure. Heavy eyelids, yawning,

struggling to concentrate — that’s sleep pressure, doing its job.

The second is our body clock — our circadian rhythm. Our brain’s internal clock, telling us

when to feel awake, and when to feel sleepy.

One of the biggest signals for that clock is light.

Bright light in the morning tells the brain: wake up. Darkness in the evening tells it: prepare

for sleep.

As darkness falls, the brain produces melatonin.

And melatonin is often misunderstood. It doesn’t make children fall asleep. It’s not a

sleeping tablet.

It’s more like a messenger. It tells the brain: nighttime has arrived. Time to prepare.

Here’s where it gets interesting for our children.

Many children with ADHD and autism experience these two systems differently. Some

don’t build sleep pressure the same way. Some have body clocks that simply run later.

Parents tell me — “he just doesn’t seem tired,” or “she’s bouncing off the walls at

bedtime” — and it can be incredibly frustrating, because it’s so easy to assume: if my child

isn’t falling asleep, I must be doing something wrong.

Often — that’s simply not true.

Sometimes the brain is working differently. And once we understand that, we stop asking

“what’s wrong with my child.”

And start asking: “what barriers might my child be facing?”

That’s a much kinder question. And a much more useful one.

So if there’s one thing to take from this video:

Children are not bad sleepers. They experience barriers to sleep. And understanding those

barriers is the first step toward curiosity and compassion — instead of frustration.

Next video: healthy sleep habits — and why good sleep actually starts the moment your

child wakes up in the morning, not at bedtime.

There’s a link below to the free Sleep Confidence Starter Pack, matched to whichever area’s

most relevant to you.