Our DD10 (ADHD inattentive type) has always had the worst time falling asleep. Her brain just whirrs and whirrs. She is miserable unless allowed to read or draw - which she does for hours and hours. That sounds ok but the reality is that during school session she would not get enough sleep. So, the doctor recommended melatonin, and it works like magic. However, if one reads about melatonin, there are all kinds of warnings about the danger of melatonin usage and puberty issues. The warnings are never specific so I dug deeper and saw that it may delay puberty (studies of rats and such). What information have you all found? Is it something I should be concerned with, or do I decide that a good night's rest outweighs the danger of the small amount she takes at night (I quarter a 5 mg tablet so tiny tiny amount).

My DD10 has been taking melatonin for the past year and a half and it has been life changing. She used to lie awake for hours unable to fall asleep, wake up during the night on a regular basis and be very, very active in her sleep. Now she falls asleep pretty much right away and stays asleep even though she remains very active. (Talking, rolling about, throwing off blankets, kicking, etc.) It's been a while since we found her sleepwalking but that can be hit or miss - we have to be awake and in the room where she is walking to know its happening. She is a good size kid so was started on 3 mg. On non-school nights we didn't give it to her and she would have the same falling asleep/staying asleep issues so we started using it every night instead. About 6 months ago the 3 mg dose stopped being effective so we started with 5mg. (She is basically the size of a small adult now.)

I wish we found a delayed puberty side effect! I am stressing that one big time and dream of finding a "pause" button... Shortly before her 10th birthday we saw the first signs of impending puberty. From what I have read this seems to be totally normal timing. She has one friend who is extremely overweight who is way ahead of her in that regard and several who are significantly underweight or serious gymnasts who are behind her. This also jives with what I've read. So from my n=1 sample no such side effect.

I don't know anything off-hand about melatonin, but I do know that growth hormone is released primarily during sleep, so it makes sense that a person who is not sleeping adequately during latency/pre-pubertal years might actually be experiencing more maturational delays than one who is. So maybe the two offset?

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

DD11 has been taking it for about a year, and like others, it has been a miracle for our family. She takes 2 mg, and our pediatrician (who is pretty conservative) has told us that that is fine, but she shouldn't go over 3 mg. She she is growing like a weed, but our pediatrician thinks she has another year to go before menses. She previously had the same diagnosis as the OP's daughter, but it has now been updated to a diagnosis of ASD.

Anecdotal: DS12 has taken melatonin during school year (when he takes stimulant med) for three years and he entered puberty early-ish (has facial hair already, despite small stature). DD11 takes it occasionally (no meds, but terrible sleeper) and entered puberty early-ish as well.

I had never heard about this potential side effect. In our case, if it *did* delay puberty, I'm grateful.

We've used melatonin for several years -- me, DS12 and DD9 -- and don't have any puberty happening here. It is a godsend for getting to sleep, for me when I have to go to work in the morning and for the kids when they have to get up for school. We haven't noticed any side effects whatsoever.

Greenlotus, something which helps me (not ADHD, but take a long time to go to sleep because can't switch off) is listening to something on a timer (podcast or book or guided meditation). It helps me relax into sleep by engaging my interest, but because I'm lying down in the dark I'm more likely to fall asleep. Probably not a magic bullet for your daughter, but might be helpful.
I had thought that unless there was some medical issue (AsD, in particular), that your should never take melatonin for more than three nights in a row because it would mess with your body's production of it. Is this no longer the recommendation? I use it on myself or kids roughly once a year if/when sleep times are way out of whack (on occasion bedtime will creep to close to 10pm, which leaves kids tired, but not tired enough to go to sleep at 8, or sometimes the lingering traces of jetlag will leave them tossing and turning in bed!), for one or two nights. Kids get half a tablet, I take a full one.

We do Not use melatonin as it is not available on prescription for children where we live, but have had good results with magnesium citrate when Ds1 took hours to fall asleep every night. Just in case you want to try an alternative.
A recommended dosage is 200 mg, you may have to play around with it because a overdose will give you diarrhea. Pleasant side effect if your kid happens to be a picky eater as well and you have a hard time getting those fruit and veggies in so your kid is constipated, you may have normal bowel function instead, without meds or other side effects.

Hello everyone,

We use melatonin for the kids for a few nights in a row when we are travelling to get them over jet lag. We have not used it more regularly, but we are lucky that our kids are relatively good sleepers.

I just wanted to make another suggestion about an alternative that maybe could be beneficial in conjunction with melatonin if nothing else.

I don't know if there has been much discussion on this forum over the research coming out lately on blue light exposure and its effects on melatonin production, but we have found wearing blue light blocking glasses in the evenings can really help with sleep. I got some for myself first when I started waking between 3-5 in the morning and having trouble falling back asleep. Then when my daughter was taking 1-1.5 hours to fall asleep, and being really hard to wake in the morning, I decided to get her a pair. And we found when she wears the orange glasses for a couple of hours before bedtime, she falls asleep better, and she also wakes up earlier and feeling more refreshed.

She is not thrilled with everything having an orange tinge, but you do get used to it.

Anyway, not sure if it will help anyone else, but I just thought I would throw it out there as something else that works pretty well for us.

Is she on stimulant meds for the ADHD? DD is a poor sleeper anyway, but on stimulant meds she is worse, even when they wear off hours before bedtime. We have tried melatonin with varying degrees of success (sometimes it seems to help, sometimes it doesn't). The woman in GNC told me it can cause night terrors in kids, which made me wonder if it actually changes the sleep cycles somehow (in a negative way). DD hasn't reported night terrors, but she has reported weird or bad dreams. I found that when we started to give her Intuniv alone or along with the Vyvannse (stimulant) in the morning, she was sleeping much better (after she got past the sedative effect, where she was falling asleep in the middle of the day). It only helps with extended release guanfacine (Intuniv), not short-acting tenex. Of course, intuniv may have it's own list of possible side effects but a bonus may be helping with the ADHD.

blackcat, I don't want to hijack but am sending a PM.

My DD11 has been on it for 2 years now and it has been a godsend. We do 5mg a night which her sleep doctor is okay with, but we also do Iron for her restless leg syndrome. She grew about 8 inches in 4 months after starting the Melatonin and iron. She leveled off for awhile and now is growing again. She is around 5 feet tall right now and growing.
If she doesn't take the melatonin she is up till midnight or later but the nights she takes it she is asleep within a half hour.

This is great! Does anyone have any advise on how much to take? We want to just try a little at first but not sure how much?

Thanks!
Rach

Chiming in very late here, but I know many parents of gifted kids deal with sleep problems, so others might be searching...
I was advised by several doctors to try very low-dose Melatonin (300 mcg), which some studies have found to be more effective than higher dosages.
My gyn and PCP both advised me to take 300 mcg daily for 30 days, 2 hours before bed, to try to develop a better sleep pattern. My son's ped advised the same. Ds has used it intermittently (with amazing results), while I've used it more regularly.
I had previously tried 3 and 5 mg doses and found that I had very vivid dreams and didn't sleep as well. With the 300 mcg dose (I order on Amazon), I get perfect results.

I've heard this too, which is why we've never used it.

My daughter has issues falling asleep - she will read or draw for hours. It's better during the school year because she's forced to wake up earlier, but during the summer she almost switches completely to a "graveyard shift" unless I'm proactive about waking her up in the mornings. So that's what I do... I wake her up early.

Anyway... no melatonin in this house.

Same here - unless I wake up DD10 at a reasonable hour, she'll happily sleep until 10 am and then not go to sleep until midnight (or later). Even waking her at around 7 or 7:30 am, in the summer she won't fall asleep until after 11 pm.

But once she's asleep, she's usually fine. If anyone has other suggestions for moving bedtimes in a more normal direction - I'd love to hear it!

For the summer, I've given up on getting DS7 to sleep at a reasonable (9:00-ish) hour. Even if we get him up early, he can't get to sleep at night until 10:30 or 11:00. A few days of that, and we have a cranky guy on our hands.

We let him read for a while, but then eventually turn out the lights and tuck him in. Even then, he just lays there, staring at the ceiling, and will occasionally call and ask me to give him something to "dream about" - aka - something to hold his thoughts in a happy place until he falls asleep. I feel so badly for him, because he wants to go to sleep.

We did a couple trial doses of melatonin (in the form of a small cup of the drink NeuroSleep). It certainly was magical in its effect! So we'll keep that in our pocket. But we're trying to avoid the every night thing just because I'm jumpy about the idea. We already have him "addicted" to white noise ...

Suggestion for moving bedtime: As the ultimate cheat - for the week before school starts, I'm taking him from California (Pacific coast time) to Texas (central) to see grandparents. We'll get home on Sunday and school starts on Tuesday. I'm hoping he's still on Central time when school starts, so 9:00 will feel like 11:00! So pathetic, but I really did plan the schedule that way.

Side note - his Dad can't get to sleep at night either and routinely stays up to 3am. So I'm not thinking this problem is going away any time soon ....

Wow - that sounds like it might work - for a while at least.

Unfortunately, no such option here (in the Eastern time zone) unless we go to Europe and back. I do get a bit of a break when Daylight savings ends...

You can fake it at home. The key is light. If you have the cash, you can get alarm clocks that slowly light the room before they go off, to mimic sunrise. In summer, or in certain latitudes, you can just have ineffective curtains. Make sure the room is dark during the night, but bright from sunrise. Make sure the house is dim and no screen time before bed.

I did start my DS10 on 1mg of melatonin because he wasn't able to get to sleep until 10:30/11 despite a 8:30 bedtime but he was sleepy the next day, so I think I'm going to try 300mcg dose as momoffour suggested...

Thanks - I do open the curtains in her room as soon as I get up in the morning. Unfortunately, this seems to have no effect. I still have to wake her up even with the sun pouring in for over an hour.

There was one day this week when she went to sleep a lot faster - it was after a full day of musical theatre camp, a play date with her friend, an art class, and an hours swim in the pool. If we could do that level of activity every day I think we'd be better off. Unfortunately she is by nature more sedentary - most days, it is hard to get her out of the house doing some physical activity.

We do try to keep the lights dim and have no screen time for an hour before she goes to bed. However it's not always consistent and something we can try to be better at.

I just found some at super market.One is in gummy bear form,2 gummy bears-5mg.I got that an 300 Mcg."..........later,it worked,she's sleeping.

Melatonin is short-acting; it wouldn't have been in her system that long.

I would advise talking to your pediatrician if you have sleep concerns.

Reviving this thread because a RL friend who uses melatonin for her kids was discussing an article aboul side effects in kids without giving specifics so I came back to reread here. I wanted to report that we switched DD (now 11) to the 300 mcg dose and it works really well. She doesn't fall asleep quite as quickly as she did on the 5 mg dose so we give it to her a bit earlier. She does fall asleep easily though and stays asleep. I think a bit less active in her sleep as well. I have not been able to find it in stores so also have to order from Amazon. On non school nights she usually skips it and usually stays up much, much later. So yeah, we are sticking with melatonin but are happy to be using the micro dose instead. Thank momtofour for letting me know about this option!

I take a 1 mg tablet and give 1/2 to my DS11 and 1/4 to my DD8 and it works pretty well in that they don't end up staying awake for hours like they used to. I too read this thread and started with reduced dose (doc originally recommended 3 mg)