alternatives to melatonin?

[thisisyesterday]

Hi all, just wondered if any of you had come across any methods to get children to sleep better!
paediatrician had suggested medication, which I presume would be melatonin? (tho didn't actually ask, bad mummy) but having read up on it DP is not overly keen the idea of using it

are there any other things we can try to help DS1 fall asleep quicker? he is fine once he is asleep, but he takes hours and hours to actually get to sleep.
we had a little success with a relaxation cd, but he now just listens to the whole thing then starts playing.

we need something that will help him naturally wind down and feel sleepy..

justabout he hasn't been prescribed melatonin .
we spoke about his difficulty getting to sleep and the paediatrician said there was something she can prescribe for that if we wanted (which i presume is melatonin). we said we didn't want to go down the medication route yet which she was fine with.
but we're doing some research into it!

thanks ti for sharing your thoughts. I think part of the problem I am having is that there doesn't appear to be guidelines on its use for children (that i can find) perhaps because enough research hasn't been done? so i'm left with random websites saying different things which of course happens when you google
I think I might talk it through with the paediatrician the next time we go, but for the time being we're going to give some natural remedies a whirl and see what happens. not holding my breath, i'm fairly sceptical, but you never know!

leonie's link says one thing that I keep reading over and over... that it's considered safe for short-term use.

if we can only use it for a short time it seems like there isn't much point? as I said further down, if we can find an alternative way of raising his own melatonin levels and/or helping him settle naturally by himself obvouisly that would be preferable as it will be a long-term solution.

just has brought up a very important factor, you can't get hooked on melatonin because it's not a sedative

thanks Leonie

i'm not scared that we will be hooked for life.
i am concerned that IF my son has lower melatonin levels then using it short term will make no difference, because when we stop he will still have low melatonin levels and will then not be able to fall asleep again!

I have yet to see ANYTHING that says it's ok to use long-term in children.

wow, you post asking for alternatives and get branded as a neurotic, scared mother who won't give her child treatment he needs.

just wow.

I would like to make an informed decision, and I would like to know, as I said in my original post, whether anyone else has found anything else that helps children fall asleep.
perhaps if you can't answer that and are just going to bang on about how you use it and it's fine with nothing to back that up then you should find a different thread.

the plural of anecdote is not data.

i didn't come here for an argument over whether or not melatonin is suitable for my child.

i came for alternative suggestions.

tetchy much?

no-one has called you anything as far as i can see - until now andi'm calling you tetchy

what's wrong with a discussion about melatonin anyhow? you know, because it's all about information sharing, informed choices are about balance aren't they?

of course you are free to use information to suit your own means and situation, we all do that, but if you don't want other people's experiences, why post on a public forum?

i'm genuinely confused by your outburst, this

My son who is 10 used melatonin for about 3 years but when we saw paediatrician last year she said its not advisable to use long term due to lack of evidence into long term use. So he stopped taking it and as you guessed the problem is not resolved and he just takes hours to get to sleep.

Unfortunately I have found nothing else to work, so am happy to keep some melatonin in for very occasional use which Dr is happy with. I'd be surprised if there is anything else that works as so many children and adults have difficulty getting to sleep that if there wAs a magic pill someone would've found it!

We have found, as an alternative to Melatonin, a chiropractor specialising in McTimoney. DS was 4 and half and had never slept through the night. He would take a while to go to sleep, sleep for about three hours and then be awake in the middle of the night moaning, laughing, shrieking etc in the wee hours for about two hours. Sometimes he wouldn't manage to fall back to sleep until about 6am. As you can all appreciate it was hard for him to function. We saw a neuro specialist at the JR in Oxford. He wore an actiwatch for 24/14 to monitor his activity levels. They felt that he was still getting roughly 7 hours a night. Not enough for a child, and especially being broken sleep. She offered us slow release melatonin. It had a strange effect on him, he slept while on it, but he was very disturbed as a result if it. We took him off it after a few days.
Then I remembered something about Quentin Willson the journalist and his son who was dx with ASD, ADHD And Dyspraxia. He was about 5/6 and had never slept. Someone recommended that they saw a chiropractor in Stratford Upon Avon. She took a full history of the pregnancy, delivery and what he'd been like since birth. She then examined him, did some gentle manipulation and that night he had his first ever full nights sleep. It turned out that he had suffered from 2/3 vertebrae bring out of alignment and this was causing his poor sleep etc. he is allegedly a different child now.
I took my DS to this same lady. DS had a number of things out of alignment. He sleeps through the night now. I have no need for stuff to make him sleep, as this has done the trick.
DS is non verbal with severe ASD. He's a much happier non verbal ASD boy now.

Justa. I am Deirdre Edwards biggest fan. When I last saw her I told her that the therapy had made a huge impact on our entire family. DS is the youngest of 4 and shared a room with his brother. He never complained, but it must have disturbed his sleep. It's a shame that we didn't do this before we committed ourselves to a £45k loft conversion!
It was genuinely the best money I have ever spent for a therapy.

I should also add, that it had a positive effect on ds's bowel movements. An end to constipation.

Sally how do you get your DS to stay still, I would love for DS1 to go to a cranial osteopath but I just can't imagine he will sit still for any length of time.

Dev. She doesn't do cranial stuff. It's skeletal manipulation. It's so quick, it just looks like flicks. No crunching of joints etc. people travel from all over to see her. www.abacushealth.co.uk/
Look into it. Best £90 I have spent in a long time.

Thanks Sally, will Def look into it. We did couple of sessions with a cranial osteopath for DS2 and was amazed at the difference before and afterwards in him so it's something I have been wanting to try for a whole but wasn't sure how it will work. I will def give it a go now.

Well I am glad. The difference in littlest DS has been amazing.