Melatonin for sleep disorder?? Any experience

[katty11]

Hi

Has anyone's child been prescribed melatonin to help with sleep???
How did you find it? Did it work? How long were they on for? What sleep problems was it prescribed for??

My DS1 has been prescribed melatonin to help regulate his circadian rhythm, which has probably been out of sync since birth.
He is basically sleep deprived, as he does not seem to be able to get good quality of sleep when he is asleep. Hmmm does that even make sense??
Sorry trying to be quick but probably not making sense.

Anyway any experience/ advice would be appreciated.

TIA

[DFH's Mummy]

We've been on melatonin for almost 6 months I think. DS is a terrible sleeper and has night terrors. For over a year he has never got the hang of self settling, he had trouble going to sleep and he'd wake up and scream or have some sort of carry on for 2-4 hours which is night terrors and sometimes he'd wake up too early as well. He also used to have trouble having naps in the daytime. We have kept a consistent routine with some alterations but nothing made a difference so we were prescribed melatonin.

It's meant to just help prepare the brain for sleep like what happens with a normal cicadian rhythm. So it sounds like it would be of enormous benefit to your DS.

I found that it helped immensely in getting him to sleep, that has still continued though the initial benefits of helping him self settle during the middle of the night did not. I think his sleep issues are a lot more serious than the paediatrician thought. We are going off the melatonin now and starting another medication.

Apparently they can build a resistance to it though.

I hope it all works out for you!

[katty11]

Thanks DFH's mummy

So glad there is someone else out there going through similar stuff.

DS1 has been a crap sleeper from day dot, and when he was about 15 months I took him to paed who specialises in sleep, as we were going through a very rough patch with his sleep, and he was inconsolable and would scream and hit and it would go on and on and on, on occasion all night!
He diagnosed night terrors ( which I had never heard of, as he was my first bubba ). He said we could do a sleep study but that it probably wouldn't mean anything it terms of strategies to deal with the terrors. It would be more of a reassurance that what he said was happening to DS was in fact the case.
So I decided not to do the study and he said we could always come back if needed.

So things were good as I now learnt about terrors and other sleep disorders and felt I could deal with it, as I had an understanding of what was happening.
As he grew older his night terrors actually decreased, his night arousals however have stayed the same. He's up 1 or twice or more each night. Mostly fairly easy for me to comfort him back to sleep.

But in his 2's and mainly his 3's when he stopped sleeping during the day, I found his behaviour during the day completely out of control, irrational and he was very irritable.
I first I thought it was a behavioural thing, and did parenting courses to work out where I was going wrong, but then it clicked that it always come back to his sleep or lack of!

Just went to normal paed and he thinks it's anxiety issue and prescribed the melatonin to help his cicadian rhythm, and hopefully help his sleep.
IMO it's the lack of sleep causing anxiety not the other way round.

Anyway I have decided to go back to the sleep paed ( got an appointment in Jan ) and am finally going to get that sleep study done, and try to work out what's really going on. I believe there is more to it, and I really want him to not have to live each day being sleep deprived and all the implications that come with that. eg. learning, homones, attention, wellbeing, appetite etc etc etc

We as a family have been so close to breaking point on many occasions since DS1's birth, as there is constant tension and sleep deprivation all round.

Anyway I could go on and on, but I won't ; )

I hope the new meds go well with your DS and you see some improvement. Just out of interest have you done a sleep study for your DS?? Does parasomnia run in the family at all?

I just noticed in your siggy that your due next May, just so you know my DS2 actually sleeps. IT's bliss.

[DFH's Mummy]

A lot of what you described sounds familiar! Our family is also at breaking point and as I have frequently said to DH, I have thought I would go insane if I had to put up with one more night of the usual cr@p. Obviously I haven't but I sure have felt that I was tipping at that point.

We haven't been referred to a sleep clinic but I have thought hard about it. If this new sedatative (which is meant to help DS learn to self settle by keeping him drowsy when he wakes up in the middle of the night) doesn't work for us I will press for it. DS's behaviour is horrible during the daytime because he is soo overtired. It is just tantrum after tantrum after tantrum.

We've been to residential sleep school twice and the paediatrician tried to get me to go back but I have refused, there is nothing they can help us with. We do the friggen routine every night and it doesn't work! Like you I think there is something else going on. And I'm sick of having to push, push, push for an answer.

TBH, I have been very scared about having another child because of the sleep issue. I don't think I would survive another bad sleeper. But I have to hope, I'm enough of a prisoner to the whole sleep thing, I can't let it deny me another child. So I'm glad to hear your 2nd is a good sleeper!

I had night terrors as a child but Mum says they started when I was 3, not 1 and I would just run around the house screaming or silent.

[katty11]

DFH's mummy

We also did tresillian and I had a baby whisperer come to my place all to no avail. So definitely trust your instinct and don't go back instead ask for the sleep clinic.
The sleep paed did tell me that the sleep schools are pretty usesless when the underlying cause of sleep is physical not behavioural.

I can pm you his details as he truly is fantastic, and at my appointment actually gave me some real life stories of how other families have struggled with this kind of stuff. I guess to make me feel better : )

I was also very scared about having another, and actually asked the paed what the stats where in having another with similar problems. I can't actually remember now the percentage but it was higher if it runs in the family ( which it does with you and I ), but the percentage was still low really.
We waited to start TTC until he was 2, as I couldn't have coped with a newborn and DS1 at the time.
I kind of thought well if I have done it once I can do it again IYKWIM, even though I didn't want to go through all that crap again. But I thought the chances of having another child the same are pretty slim.

Thankfully ( for sanity ) DS2 can actually sleep. HURRAY.

If your interested I might set up a Social Group, that way we could talk about everything a bit more privately?

HOw did you go last night? Probably to early to tell if he only just started the new meds.

I'm really glad you are on this site and we have found each other : )

[DFH's Mummy]

We've been on the medicine since Friday now and there has been some improvement. I only needed to get up twice last night and he's been getting up at 8.30am or so which is bliss. I am worried a bit that this will not work for us, I feel that it might be more than DS being unable to self settle, I would think the two failed stays at sleep school indicates this.

Hoe is the melatonin going?

[katty11]

Hi

Glad to hear there has been some improvement : )
I really hope this works for you both, I guess all you can do is trust your instinct that something is not right. IYKWIM....

The melatonin seems to help him with initially falling asleep, he just couldn't switch off before, where as now, he's asleep within 5-10mins of going to bed. He's still waking at night, and waking early (5.30am this morning), but will see how it goes.

I just feel sh^t for not being able to help him more, it's not fair on him to live each day in this hazy sleep deprived state. He has no control over his actions at times, he just doesn't know what he's doing. I just want to help him be happy and enjoy every day..

I am at the point where I don't care about getting up every night ( it's been nearly 4 yrs of broken sleep ) I just want him to be able to sleep, you know REAL rejuvinating sleep, and not wake up each day in a bad mood.
Arghh so over it........ why is it sooo complicated!

Sorry for the vent, keep me posted on how your both doing.