Melatonin advice

[delilabell]

My son is on 2mg tablets.
He is now asleep by 7.30/8 ish eich is wonderful but awake at 5!
Is this just how it works?

How old is your son? What time does he take the tablets? My daughter has been on these tablets for the past few years. She takes hers later, about 8pm and then up by about 7 am for school. She's always got a good 10 hours sleep out of them. Maybe need to give them a bit later in the evenings so as to not wake so early?

We tried that but it made no difference. Might try it again for a few days.
He's 7. The tablet works within 45minites for him. He's flat out from it. So he normally takes it between 6.30 and 7 and is asleep between 7.30&8 he was prescribed tjem because he was awake til late but then would sleep til 7 so this is a shock 😂
Will try giving tjem later.

Is he on slow release?

My DS has taken melatonin for 10 years now, he's usually asleep within the hour and can be awake from 4/5 onwards. Without them, he was getting maybe 2 hours sleep.

I'm assuming they were prescribed and you're not just buying them off some dodgy internet site.

Sorry, missed the last post saying they're prescribed.

He's getting 10ish hours sleep, so that's good. You can try giving them an hour later, see if that helps.

Hope you find a solution. I started my 9 year old on 2.5mg and it’s revolutionized things totally. I now see how his lack of sleep was contributing to his bahviour. He’s the calmest person now. Perhaps you need slow release?

Does he need a higher dose? When my daughter was the same age she was initially prescribed 3 tablets a night

Now only takes one per night she's 12 now

On the advice of CAMHS, DS (12 but tiny) is on 1 tablet crushed and two whole. He's getting a lot more sleep but still tends to wake early because, as the psych put it, melatonin is a wimpy hormone compared to cortisol, which wakes you up.

My son is on 2mg. It doesn’t knock him out although he does go off to sleep within 10 mins of going to bed and getting him up is a massive challenge. He’s adult sized. I do wonder if he needs a higher dose.

Melatonin often works best at low doses, the evidenced therapeutic dose for adults is 0.3mg. The problem is that it's prescribed off-licence so there are no guidelines for paediatric clinicians to follow and many seem to make it up as they go along.

OP, you probably just need to give the dose a bit later. Melatonin has a very short half-life so the fact your Ds is staying asleep so long (way beyond when the melatonin would have worn off) suggests he has no problems staying asleep, and is probably waking when he's had enough sleep.

They never actually worked for my son ,but my understanding was that they were supposed to help the child fall asleep.not keep.them asleep?🤔could you try a higher dose,I think my son was prescribed 3-6 mg ?

Melatonin will generally help people get to sleep but not to stay asleep. I would say that 9.5 hours doesn't sound terrible as an amount of sleep.

I'm.aware some people on here will judge, but I leave out dc's tablets by their bed and they're allowed to watch cartoons until 6.30 as long as they don't wake me.