None of my kids have needed as much sleep as my friends' kids, as in at 5pm when all kids are a bit cranky my children would often be LESS cranky than their little friends who got 2-4 hrs more sleep per 24hrs than my kids, and their response to missing an hour of nap time was much less dramatic than their friends'. As well as needing less sleep than other people's children they have also had trouble winding down and learning to settle.
However, DD9yrs, my eldest, is the one we are having investigated for ADHD-i was somehow "more" of everything than her sisters, harder to settle, harder to stay asleep, no sense that she was tired. The first time she declared herself tired, took herself to bed and went to sleep she was 6yrs old, it was the day we moved house and she was hours late for bed (because the bed was still being built). But we still nearly fell of our chairs in shock, it's still a rare event 3.5yrs later. We did go through stages when she was getting less sleep than she needed in order for her to get enough sleep, as crazy as that sounds. From about 2yrs if she napped for even 30 mins during the day she would be up for an extra 3hrs at night. So we deprived her of naps that her behaviour showed she needed or she actually ended up with less sleep in a 24hr cycle than if we letter her nap. That was a rough 6-12 months.
I feel pretty strongly though that her sleep issues are caused by or co-morbid with whatever her other exceptionality/ies are rather than sleep issues being the cause of the problem. I am absolutely certain there is something going on with her, I am just not sure how much luck we will have of getting it picked up. Oh, and she had retained her moro reflex, along with most of the other primitive reflexes, they are no fairly well integrated and she does sleep a lot better.
