My son’s sister is having trouble sleeping, advice?
My son’s older sister, 6, is staying with us for the summer as his father’s wife is going through a pretty tough pregnancy.
Outside of my son not wanting to share his room after he realized this would be for more than a few days, everything’s been pretty normal. I just turned my office into her bedroom.
Here’s the issue, she started wetting the bed, which isn’t too abnormal, it was a few times a week but we’re down to about 1 since we stopped drinking anything within an hour of bedtime.
But now she is having trouble sleeping and fixing that isn’t as easy. They go to bed around 9, I wake up at 1 and she’s on the ipad. I take the ipad and put her back to sleep. I go in there at around 1:30 and she’s watching TV, so I put the TV on a boring show (it’s a trick that worked for me because I needed the TV on to sleep)
I go back in at 3:00 and she’s just wide awake. Not watching TV because her back is to it but she’s still awake. I ask her if she’s having nightmares, if she’s uncomfortable, if she’s hungry. She says she’s fine she just can’t sleep
After that it was pretty much the same thing minus the ipad (I keep it in my room now)
She goes to bed, stays awake until 3-4am then finally goes to sleep
It’s not getting better, it’s almost 6 and she’s still awake right now
This just started about a week or two ago, she’s been here for since May.
Any advice? I’m not sure what to do.
I think she may be worried about her mom (step mom) but is unable to really express it so it’s showing in this way.
I’m not sure what to do.
Posted Jul 13, 2026, 10:48 AM UTC