Jump to content
ACN Latitudes Forums

Melatonin for 7 year old


Recommended Posts

I plan to start my son on melatonin in the evenings 1-2mg per his doc (age 7) . Does anyone know of a good brand for kids? Some bottles say only use on adults. Andrea

 

Hi! We use Source Naturalle. We get ours at Whole Foods. I am sure most of them say Adult use only. It is a little pill that comes in either 1, 2 or 3mg. My son is 7 and he gets half of the 1mg pill and it's typically lights out within 30 minutes of giving it to him. Works wonders. At my In Laws this weekend I ran out because I didn't plan on staying longer than 1 night so my DS did not get any and was up until 1am YIKES! Very wired restless. My son is on the smaller side and only about 43lbs so the .5mg works for him but if your son is more of an average 7 year old or bigger, he may need more. m First night he took it we were like THANK YOU! Good luck!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I plan to start my son on melatonin in the evenings 1-2mg per his doc (age 7) . Does anyone know of a good brand for kids? Some bottles say only use on adults. Andrea

 

Hi! We use Source Naturalle. We get ours at Whole Foods. I am sure most of them say Adult use only. It is a little pill that comes in either 1, 2 or 3mg. My son is 7 and he gets half of the 1mg pill and it's typically lights out within 30 minutes of giving it to him. Works wonders. At my In Laws this weekend I ran out because I didn't plan on staying longer than 1 night so my DS did not get any and was up until 1am YIKES! Very wired restless. My son is on the smaller side and only about 43lbs so the .5mg works for him but if your son is more of an average 7 year old or bigger, he may need more. m First night he took it we were like THANK YOU! Good luck!

Do you know of any long term side effects? Can the body get hooked on it so they can't fall asleep w/o it? Andrea

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also only use .6 mg for my 9 yr old daughter.

I would consider starting with a lower dosage.

 

I really don't know about any long term effects but both a nutritionist, a health food store owner, and two neurologist have told me the dose I am using is safe and it is supposed to be non habit forming. I can tell you DS has been on it for almost a year now. There have been many nights he has not taken it after a long day and he is pretty tired anyway, and he ends up falling asleep fine on his own. The way he acts though sometimes when he does not get it is the same as what we were dealing with before he started taking it. Irritable, unable to fall asleep, tics, wired, etc. We even weaned him down to .25mg for a period of time when he was doing really well, but once his brother had strep in February and then again in April, it started all over again and we had to up the dose as .25mg was not cutting it.

 

The neurologist wanted to put him on clonodine (spelling) I think originally as a sleep aid but I said I wanted something more natural if possible as we were already putting my 6 year old on freaking zoloft. She recommended the melatonin and I know the parents in the Tourettes support group locally use it quite a bit and I have not seen anything negative from them.

 

It's hard though with any medicine or supplement for a child. I am sure I could find a lot of negative stuff online as well as positive stuff about giving this to my son.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We were going to start melatonin (or use it when needed actually) and I started ot look into and all the warning labels say not to use on kids. I couldn't find anything to say it was bad for kids, there just werent' any studies. I decided to try a homeopathic sleep aid called Calms Forte - I don't really do homeopathic stuff, its something the woman int he store recommended - but it works for us! I give my 100lb 11 year old one adult tablet (dose says 1 o 3 tabs). They also make a kids tablet.

 

I have given him melatonin before, and I would do it again if I though he needed something more (like in an exacerbatin) but for us, for now, this is working. I do think its is milder, I've taken it my self to compare to the melatonin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...