I have a 5 year old who sounds a lot like your daughter. I'm a single mother and brought home a newborn who didn't sleep more than two hours at a time for the first four months. She napped an hour in the morning and afternoon, but the slightest noise would wake her and it took us until age 4 to get her to "sleep through the night". I have been EXHAUSTED for 5 years. Until she started kindergarten this fall, she was going to bed after 10:00 p.m. and sometimes closer to 11! I JUST started getting some much needed "me" time at night. My daughter, as much as I love her, has NEVER been what I consider a good sleeper and I can 100% understand how tiring and frustrating this is.
Ok, enough venting and on to the advice. Have you and your husband thought about having a sleep study done? My daughter has allergies and asthma and we've had to see specialists for that, who then referred us for sleep studies. The problem with children who don't get enough sleep is that they learn to live without it and often present as not sleepy or tired. I've suffered from insomnia my whole life. Don't forget that children are just small people. They have a lot of the same issues we do as adults and don't always have the words or understanding for what they are feeling. Do either you or your husband have trouble falling/staying asleep? After all this time, I'm finally on AMBEIN. I know medication probably isn't an option for a 9 year old, but some helpful medical advice for me was to try harder to understand that there are people in this world who either don't require a lot of sleep or have sleep issues. As adults, we find ways to deal with it. Children aren't any different and a lot of sleep depends on the personality of the child. Is your daughter a worrier? High strung? Perfectionistic? My daughter is all of the above and we do family counseling to help her relax a little as a 5 year old "Type A" personality! They focus on the sources of her "anxiety", "nervousness" and help me learn to talk to her about things so they don't overwhelm her.
So, in a nutshell: I'd dig deeper into the root of the problem. I was afraid to fall asleep by myself at night (had bad dreams or just scary thoughts) and slept with my mom until I was 10 or 11. I don't want that for my daughter so I'm trying to be pro-active now. Talking to someone (a counselor) or getting a sleep study done if it seems the issues may have a medical base (does she feel different physically when she lays down?) are suggestions. Also, it felt like cold comfort to me so I hate to repeat it, but it did give me "permission" as a mother not to stress too much: She may have sleep issues that she's not old enough for intervention on yet. Insomnia is real and its sufferers aren't always adults. I'd see if you could talk to someone about childhood insomnia specifically and see if that helps also.
Good luck, S.. Hang in there. You'll blink and she'll be pulling all nighters in college and longing for the days when mom would tuck her in!
J.