Magic Potion, or How We Got Our Sleep Back

Little L has never ever been a good sleeper. She has, in fact, been a downright rotten sleeper for the bulk of her life thus far. As a baby, she roused whenever I put her down or passed her off to another grown-up; her sixth sense about not being near me was practically clairvoyant. Her sleep durations were crazy short, erratic, and made for some interesting bar graphs when I tried to chart for a pattern.

While co-sleeping was like a new awakening for us, and brought with it a slightly better sleep for me (since I could just whip out my milk machine and keep snoozing), it didn't do much to make Little L's sleeps more sound. The moment I got up to pee, she would wake up. Every. Single. Time. It was uncanny. My toddler was also temperamental and struggled with emotional self-regulation. She was 0-10 in terms of her big feelings, and the escalations came quickly and took forever to die down.

Post-nursing era, we still found that our kiddo was waking up tired and grouchy. Despite our attempts to get her to bed at a half-normal hour, she would toss and turn and struggle to settle; we would turn off lights, turn on music, snuggle her tight, and try to slow our own breathing in the hopes that it might make a difference. It would not. She would ask for her iPad, or a book, and when we finally caved, that would turn into many books and many minutes spent on technology. Eventually we would go back to the living room to play and eat a snack, since it would be crystal clear to everyone that Little L was nowhere near ready for bed, despite her dark eye circles and unnaturally low number of slumber hours the night before.

Anyway, we were finally introduced to melatonin by a friend of mine, during one of our playdates. I was skeptical, to be honest; nothing had worked in 5.5 years, so I wasn't exactly expecting a miracle.

And yet, that was EXACTLY what happened. We gave Little L a 2.5mg melatonin gummy to try, and when I put her to bed that night, she fell asleep within 30 minutes. In fact, she was only lying in my arms for about 3 minutes before she was completely conked out. After I rescued my arm from under her head, she stayed asleep, and slept an uninterrupted 11 hours. When she woke up, she was in a stellar mood. That day, when she got upset, she was able to calm down in half the time that she would normally need. She also had way fewer outbursts, and was just a much more pleasant child.

We totally thought it was a fluke. We're edumacated, darn it! We weren't going to declare a win after just one trial; life is full of coincidences and this study must have had other confounding variables.  We tried it again the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that. After about two weeks, we were convinced. Melatonin gummies were the modern day magic sleep potion for our kid, and not only did they transform her sleep, but the general quality of her waking hours, too!

In fact, Little L asks for the melatonin gummies every night. She herself has noticed such a difference that she also doesn't want to go to sleep without them. We wanted to go a night without them just to confirm our hypothesis, but there's no way Little L would let us. Plus, why fix what isn't broken? Or in this case, break what was just fixed?!

Melatonin is a fairly safe supplement, even for kids, if given in a low dose. It doesn't help all children with sleep, but there have been a few studies done that show that for a certain population of children, it helps quiet down the neuroreceptors and contributes to a better sleep.

And while we do still have the occasional random 4:00am wake-up (which usually results in a 6:00am nap), Little L will be asleep within 30 minutes of taking the melatonin, and will stay asleep (even when I leave an hour later to run a bath or a shower or the washing machine) until she wakes again at 8:00am. And when she wakes up? All smiles and stories and excited giggles for the day ahead; no more sullen sleepy kid with raccoon eyes.

Game. Changer.

I'm not a medical professional. Melatonin, at least in the States, is still a prescription-based supplement (unlike in Canada, where it's just over the counter). There haven't been a lot of longitudinal studies done to show the effectiveness/dangers of prolonged melatonin use. There isn't a lot of consistent advice available on how large a dose different kids require, either; I've heard anything from 1mg to 7mg. And we also don't know if kids can build tolerances or dependencies to melatonin over prolonged use.

What I do know is this: my kid doesn't take two hours to settle down anymore, sleeps 10-11 hours straight now, doesn't rouse every time the toilet flushes, and wakes up happy and settled.

And that's good enough for me.