Sleeping tablets

[Goingtobeawesome]

After speaking to CAMHS my GP has drawn up a prescription for 13 year old DD for melatonin. Reading the leaflet it clearly and firmly states not to be given to children aged 0-18. Dh rang the GP and was advised to ring the doctor at CAMHS. This he has done but with all our contact with them he hasn't had a call back and I've just requested he ring them again after DD asked for something else as she can't sleep.

DD has always slept less than our other children. She finds it hard to switch off and all the usual things that are recommended don't work for her. She does have underlying medical issues but I don't think they are a factor here, unless the fact that no oral, liquid pain relief has ever worked for her is relevant. It has been years that she has found it hard to sleep.

Can anyone give me any advice please?

I do feel like we have no choice but to let her take them. She's spent years not being able to sleep and just keeps going, maybe tomorrow night. Thank you all.

Sleeping tablets = sedatives - it is all semantics tbh.

Yes, melatonin is a hormone.
It happens to only be available, strictly governed prescriptions in the UK although widely available over the counter in many countries.

To try to differentiate between 'drug' and 'medicine' and 'food supplements' again is mainly a matter of definition and legal category rather than that one is safer or better or less likely to cause unwanted effects.

If I had a child with severe sleep issues, I'd give melatonin a try.

Good luck.

The manufacturers are covering their arses because they didn't want to fork out a fortune to apply for the licences for kids as well. Melatonin has been used in kids for about 20 years in the UK. Partly because it's so much safer than actual sleeping tablets, which tend to be 1)sedation, and 2)addictive. Whereas melatonin is a top up of a naturally occurring hormone.