Melatonin

[Scorer]

This isn't once in a while though, it's almost every night.

As has been mentioned there may be reasons for that which are reasonable but not great to be self diagnosing and prescribing if that’s the case. Risks with melatonin aren’t high but with other things that attitude is positively dangerous.

 

[Morny]

Prescribed off license for autistic children relatively commonly. In my experience it is effective at helping kids get to sleep if you already have a routine but won’t always work and only helps get them off to sleep, not necessarily stay asleep for more than three or four hours. Never noticed any negative side effects in kids I’ve known that had it.

Realise I'm jumping into this thread a bit late, but my 4 year old has it prescribed recently by the doctor. He's likely to very soon get a formal diagnosis of Autism, just waiting for the school to give their evaluation as a kind of final "box tick".

One of the things he's always struggled with has been switching off and getting to sleep - it used to take him ages. We moved recently and it's improved a fair bit (still has bad nights but probably 2, max 3, a week, instead of nearly every night), but mentioned to paediatrition and she diagnosed melatonin but have been nervous about using it for now, certainly when he's sleeping somewhat okay.

Is there any issues/drawbacks to it, I don't want him to become dependent or it to affect him during the day or whatever? Apologies if you're unsure, you just seem like you've a bit experience in this arena.

 

[AndrewP]

Realise I'm jumping into this thread a bit late, but my 4 year old has it prescribed recently by the doctor. He's likely to very soon get a formal diagnosis of Autism, just waiting for the school to give their evaluation as a kind of final "box tick".

One of the things he's always struggled with has been switching off and getting to sleep - it used to take him ages. We moved recently and it's improved a fair bit (still has bad nights but probably 2, max 3, a week, instead of nearly every night), but mentioned to paediatrition and she diagnosed melatonin but have been nervous about using it for now, certainly when he's sleeping somewhat okay.

Is there any issues/drawbacks to it, I don't want him to become dependent or it to affect him during the day or whatever? Apologies if you're unsure, you just seem like you've a bit experience in this arena.

I would say there's no point giving him it if he's going to sleep ok without it now.

I don't think it has why effect during the day though.

 

[Morny]

I would say there's no point giving him it if he's going to sleep ok without it now.

I don't think it has why effect during the day though.

Yeah, if it's like it was at old house (which was 5-6 nights a week it's take a couple of hours to get him over) then we'd be looking more seriously. But here it's only 2-3, although he does get up middle of the night at a similar rate but seems the melatonin won't have any impact in that.

It's moreso wondering incase it regresses, so if we hit a period where he suddenly goes back to like the old house, we could be able to give him it.

Cheers for the reply, good it'd have no impact on his daytime mood/personality etc .....

 

[AndrewP]

Yeah, if it's like it was at old house (which was 5-6 nights a week it's take a couple of hours to get him over) then we'd be looking more seriously. But here it's only 2-3, although he does get up middle of the night at a similar rate but seems the melatonin won't have any impact in that.

It's moreso wondering incase it regresses, so if we hit a period where he suddenly goes back to like the old house, we could be able to give him it.

Cheers for the reply, good it'd have no impact on his daytime mood/personality etc .....

My daughter's consultant says the tablets are slower release so work better for through the night. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but she won't take them anyway.

She's still up most nights, but she tends to get a good 4 hours first with the melatonin.

 

[Morny]

My daughter's consultant says the tablets are slower release so work better for through the night. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but she won't take them anyway.

She's still up most nights, but she tends to get a good 4 hours first with the melatonin.

Cheers mate, will bear in mind if it gets really bad again.

 

[Scorer]

Never seemed to impact functioning or behaviour the next day and not aware of any withdrawal problems. It’s naturally occurring in our bodies so generally not too much to worry about in my experience but if the current routine is working that’s more beneficial as it will help him have strategies long term without the need for medication.
When I was fostering the young person we looked after basically couldn’t get to sleep at all until physically impossible to stay awake, not uncommon for him to be awake but increasingly grumpy for well over 24 hours but he was asleep in less than 30 mins with melatonin and usually got 5/6 hours at least.