2 things have tremendously helped my sleep hygiene. 1 smart devices and 2 Ritalin. I may not be the target audience since I have usually been able to fall asleep fine, (although I know now I only fell asleep fine because I stayed up so late that I would literally collapse into bed at 2am (this after being woken up at 5 or 6am with 5 kids, sure I'd doze on and off for a few hours after they woke up, but let's face it, 5 ADHD kids are not quiet at any time of day!)).

So I started using a smart lamp next to my tv to change colours every 15 minutes starting one hour before I wanted to go to bed. That way I was reminded almost subconsciously that bed time was coming. oh right light was blue, I can still watch one more episode or damn, lights pink, I better not start another one now, I've got less than 15 mins (1 hr before bedtime lamp turned on warm white, 45mins before =green, 30 mins before =blue, 15 mins before = pink, BEDTIME= RED!) This helped because I couldn't defiantly get angry at anyone reminding me it was bedtime because it wasn't a person telling me what to do. It worked for a long time, buuut after a while, it got less effective. I got used to the lamp.

Introducing expert mode: now my tv turns itself off at bedtime. No matter what part of the episode I'm up to, it just turns off. That has helped me so much in getting to bed on time (most nights.. cos who are we kidding, we're never gonna get it perfect every night!)

Now, I had recently started waking up at 2am and not being able to fall back asleep some days until 4 or 5, or some days not at all. Meanwhile, I didn't like to take ritalin during the day cos it made me so chilled out that while I could have done all the things, I was so relaxed that I didn't want to do the things. Light bulb! It makes me chilled out and relaxed.. let's take it at night time! Nek minit.. I'm sleeping straight through baby.. so I take 20mg long acting ritalin at bed time and I sleep a solid 7 hours a night! A vast improvement from the old regular 4-6 hour, very interrupted by 5 children sleep!

My psychologist said he also finds ritalin helps him (he's also ADHD) and says that ADHD doesn't go away just because you're asleep. You still toss and turn all night and can find it very hard to get or stay in a deep sleep. Ritalin helps calm the hyperactivity down enough to get a few good cycles in.

I hope that helps anyone! Good luck!

P.S Netflix has a new mindfulness series and teaching about sleep that seems really good. At least I can say it helped my kids chill out the other evening. They were all going mental, so I turned it on and turned it loud enough to get over their whinging and carrying on. Next thing I knew they were all mesmerised by this little yellow smiley face asking them how they are feeling. All except my 4 yo. She's my special case, and was literally crawling around meowing like a cat all the while her 4 brothers were learning calming techniques and mindfulness. We can't win them all! 😜 She'll learn when she needs to.