Hello there,
If I may add our family's experience with melatonin.
Upon the advice of our pediatricians (2 of them), our DS7 who has fear of the dark (so he needs brighter night light) in addition to high churn mind, caused all of us to lose sleep for years.
We are keenly aware of concerns regarding this and started him on 1 mg, then 3 then 5 mg (in the particular brand we use). We have remained stable at 5 mg for over 3 YEARS now.
We have weighed the risks for our DS and so far have found only the ff benefits:
1) Falls asleep within 1-2 hours vs 4-5 hours
2) Sleeps for 8-10 hours vs 6-7 hours
3) Has increased body weight, muscle mass, improved attention
4) Has grown! 5 inches since and now approaching 50% percentile finally
5) DH and I also now have more restorative sleep since taking it ourselves.
Note:
DS7 was an extreme case when younger, he was on some weird sleep pattern that nearly did me in! He would be asleep for 10 hours, awake for 13 hours, sleep for 3, awake for 3, asleep for 10 and again! For nearly 4 years!!!
I have literally high-fived DH at 6 am as he took over for me as DS3 had been awake since 10 pm - DS's schedule just stayed the same day or night, no matter what we tried.
When his medical issues surfaced, we had to schedule procedures which required herculean efforts of sleep prep leading to appts. When at least 2 of his peds heard about what we were going through, we were told to try Melatonin. We read a lot about this topic and thank goodness for us, it has only been a positive for our family.
We recommend it under the right circumstances and again, it has been a miracle for our family. Please do research various brands as purity, dose, etc. vary of course.
All the best,
Lucky
