Melatonin?
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| Tue, 11-28-2006 - 10:36pm |
I'm at my wits end with Ryan (4yo)...
He's never been a good sleeper - it'll take him 30-45 minutes to settle on a good night (after bath/story/snuggle/tuck in 2-3 times). Then he's up at least once, usually due to a night terror OR he's sleepwalking. Terrors happen at my house, walking at his dad's.
Ped says "He'll outgrow it"...I was blaming the night wakings on his feet/legs, because when he was first talking, he'd cry "My feets my feets" in his sleep. But now he tells me all sorts of wierd stories about strange dogs and giant apples in his bedroom.
Would Melatonin help him? He JUST finally gave in and went to sleep at 10PM...
This does not help Josh at all - they share a room while Josh's is being finished (we're remodeling a 1920's bungalow).

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I would like to know more about that too. My son is 10, I believe to have Dsgraphia and now highly suspect some sort of autism spectrum (did I say that right? lol).
I have never considered him sleeping thru the night. Not ever. When he was little (kindergarten) I just couldn't get him to bed a min before 10. Part of that might be because when he was littler I would let him stay up till 10 because daddy wouldn't get home from work till 9.
By the time school started it was not something that could be broken (as hard as I tried lol).
He still awakes, sometimes 3 times a night. Sometimes he's fully awake, sometimes he's sleep walking. A few weeks ago I decided as a little surprise to throw in his favorite blanket in the dryer for a few so it would be warm and toasty for him at bedtime. Well since he hates change, guess what.... he has to have me do it every night lol. I halfway figured that would happen tho.
And then he said he needed the dryer to be on while he went to sleep. I thought no problem, I'm about to stick in a load. Well the problem is, is he is fast asleep by the time the dryers done, but will promplty wake up and tell me he needs it on. He woke me up twice last night so I could turn on the dryer! When I tried to explain to him I couldn't run it all night, he started to get extrememly aggitated.
I just would like a full nights sleep for a change.
Hi guys,
Meltonin that you buy in the store (GNC etc)
This sounds like my dd at that age. Although, I was able to get her to bed, she would wake up at 3am, bright-eyed and ready for the day. Every day. She complained about pain in her feet for many years. Does Ryan seem to have foot pain or is seem to be only regarding dreams? I've heard other people say their kids complain about foot pain. There has to be something to it, but I'm not sure what. It really makes me think of restless leg syndrome, to be honest. Something at work being a similar family of symptoms. All I was able to do was give her a hot water bottle for her feet. I never knew if it was a mental relief or a real physical relief, but having the hot water bottle for her feet calmed her down. Helped her to feel like she had some type of control over it, I think.
She has outgrown these things. She is 8 years old now.
My oldest daughter, now. Whoo! Talk about night terrors! About one to two hours after she went to sleep. It was the not deep sleep cyle. She would get up and do crazy things. Wake up screaming. She would sleepwalk, appearing completely awake, but do bizarre things. One weird thing was one night she woke up screaming about fire and the lightbulb on her ceiling burst! Anyway, I really felt that this was a blood sugar issue. You might try to get something in his tummy before he goes to bed that doesn't spike his glucose so his insulin doesn't get too high. This is why Dr.Oz (on Oprah) was strongly advocating those steel cut oats for breakfast because they take much longer for the body to breakdwon than the flattened oats we usually eat. Giving my dd something before bed like that did seem to reduce the incidence of night terrors. She doesn't have night terrors anymore, but on occasion, she sleepwalks and also talks a heck of a lot in her sleep.
I have never used melatonin so I don't have any personal thoughts on that. If you decide to try it, let us know if it works.
It's really tough, what these hormonal imbalances do to our kids and to us parents! The thing about the sleep issue is his serotonin receptors either aren't adequately receptive or the transmission rate is too fast or slow...which imposes more hardships besides simply anxiety, but sleep and behavior as well.
Edited 11/29/2006 8:52 pm ET by littleroses
Hi everyone!
I stopped coming to the board for a week or so - things got a little nutty with the Thanksgiving week. ANYWAY - I wanted to add in my story to this thread as well.
My baby girl (recently diagnosed PDD-NOS OR Aspergers - still uncertain according to the Dr.) N-E-V-E-R slept through the night. She would never GO to sleep. Everything would have to be perfect, her blinds a certain way, her pillows just so. Her shoes lined up exactly the same, and still there would always be something. We tried everything (before we realized her problem, and linked it to that) we tried letting her cry (which is allowed, she would have done ALL night) we tried fixing every issue for her, we tried sleeping in her room, everything. My husband and I did not get a combined half a night of sleep any night in the first 3
I would swear by melatonin for my son. It helped him fall asleep within 30 minutesas opposed to 3-4 hours, and he slept thru the nite.He had to have chewable. Since medicine change he has not needed melatonin.
As far as foot pain, several times a year son would scream with leg pain. Dr thought it was growing pains. I applied icy/hot or something similar to the legs and the pain stopped for the nite.
I think it's worth trying melatonin but the decision is yours.
My son has had 'growing pains' in his legs at night ever since he was able to express to us that he was in pain. Nowadays he just brings me the pain medicine (cause he doesn't open/pour his own yet) in the middle of the night and I don't even ask why. His ped just said some boys get pains in their joints that keep them awake.
I may have to consider the Melatonin though... he also has trouble getting to sleep. He's very quiet about it but I'll sometimes find him awake hours after he went to bed. He's almost 10yrs now... what sort of dose do you think I might ought to try?
Kristy
You may want to ask the pedi or pharmacist.
Liam is 68lbs (6) and he needs 2.5 mg for effectiveness.
I find the dryer thing very interesting.
Have you tried asking your son what soothes him when the
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Hi,
Thanks for your suggestion. I think its just a sound that seems to soothe him, like the white noise thing you mentioned.
The other night he and his father were practicing music together, the music came on the computer (you know the screen saver type of music) It was very soft and had a piano in it. My husband was explaining to him that he could try to play his clarinette to the sound of the music. My son really liked this sound and asked all sorts of questions about the piano and then started talking about betoveen (sp?) and such.
The next morning, while getting ready for school, the music started up again, and my son was really listening to it. I turned it off and he kept saying no I want to hear it, and I said he and his brother had to go eat breakfast. He got kinda upset but was okay.
I thought later, if only I could find away to put this music and loop it on a recorder or something lol. That might work for him instead of the dryer, cuz I can't figure out how to run this dryer all night to keep him asleep lol. I don't know if I can afford it either lol.
Elaine
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