ASD son tried melotonin last night. Awake at 3am for the day?

[Ami5555]

Decided to try melatonin for my son last night who is 5 and diagnosed with autism as bedtime is taking 4 hours and he’s going to sleep at midnight. Had read loads of great reviews on here for it.
So we gave it to him at 7.30 (slow release which he won’t swallow so crushed it and put in milk).
he then fell asleep at 8.30pm wow we thought.
he then woke up for the day at 3am!! Does anyone know why this has happened? Is it because we crushed a slow release tablet so it wasn’t effective? Because it’s the first time trying it? It was a 2mg tablet. Thanks for any advice.

Unfortunately, this can happen in some DC. For some it only happens to begin with, for others they need a different medication because the melatonin helps them get to sleep but not stay asleep. Crushing a prolonged release medication can change how it acts so that could contribute too - can you practice taking tablets with other things first e.g. start with hundreds and thousands, then tic tacs, etc. slowly building up in size?

Thanks for your reply. Hopefully it’s because we just started it. We will try again tonight and see what happens. I think there is no slow release liquid sadly. That’s a really good suggestion for practising the swallowing I’m not sure if he will be able to do it but we can try.

There isn’t a prolonged release melatonin liquid, but there are other medications that can be tried as well or instead of melatonin.

Thank you could you let me know what they’re called?

Thank you could you let me know what they’re called?

Normally the next one to tried is Promethazine, but there are many others ranging from the fairly simple such as Alimemazine to more hardcore such as chloral hydrate.

We use melatonin gummies for kids. They're strawberry or cherry flavour and chewable - so no swallowing required!

How long does he usually sleep for? My youngest generally only sleeps for 6 hours, and whilst we use melatonin to make bedtime quicker, I give it as late as I can as personally I'd rather be going to bed later than getting up in the early hours. So although it's a slow release bear that in mind

Yes you’re right we realised we were giving it too early and had huge expectations. Have to say though giving it about 8-8.30pm now and he’s now getting to sleep within 10-30 minutes and sleeping all night (I’m sure some nights he will be up but that’s okay). He actually looks so happy and cosy in bed now as he settles because it’s more enjoyable he can just get to sleep easier.

Brilliant update! Glad it's working for you

Thank you. We had a bad night last night but I think he’s under the weather so that’s why he slept bad