Sleepless children given melatonin
Many parents will be only too familiar with the problem of children tossing and turning for hours before they finally go to sleep.
And now a growing number of Australian families are turning to prescribed melatonin to help children fall asleep.
Adults who have trouble getting to sleep or need to reset their body clocks to deal with jet lag or shift work have long sworn by melatonin, a synthetic version of the natural hormone that regulates your sleep rhythm. Now doctors are prescribing it for children too, usually in low doses.
‘‘It’s amazing,’’ said Alison Guille from Sydney, whose daughter Mia has struggled with going to sleep for most of her life.
Mia, now 14, has been taking melatonin on and off since she was 9. Rather than take melatonin every night, she saves it for when she’s feeling anxious or has had a bad couple of nights sleep.
Before melatonin, Mia wouldn’t fall asleep until 1am. After melatonin, the transformation was immediate. ‘‘She’d be asleep by 8.30 or 9 and sleep right through to seven. It was awesome,’’ Guille said.
There are no official figures about melatonin use but doctors, pharmacists and the wholesalers that supply them are reporting a growing trend.
Professor Harriet Hiscock, a paediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, has seen increased usage of melatonin for children.
‘‘It’s growing in popularity across primary-school age and teenage children and there’s some use of it in preschool children as well,’’ Hiscock said.
Marina Holt, education and training manager at wholesaler PCCA, said sales of melatonin were continuing to grow. ‘‘There’s increased acceptance of it,’’ she said.
Dr Maree Barnes, the immediate past president at the Australasian Sleep Association, said adults were increasingly wary of using traditional sleeping pills and, after discovering a natural alternative in melatonin, were realising it could help children, too.
‘‘I’ve been doing this for more than 25 years and we’ve certainly seen a significant increase in the use of melatonin, and the use in children is a recent thing,’’ Barnes said. ‘‘It’s because we didn’t [previously] know if it was safe in children.’’
Hiscock said there was a growing body of evidence to support melatonin. ‘‘It’s probably pretty safe. The studies with the longest evidence are 14 months to two years, so it’s not particularly long-term. In paediatrics there’s always the feeling you should avoid medication if you possibly can. In 70 per cent of children, behavioural strategies work, and you don’t need melatonin.’’
However, she added getting enough sleep was ‘‘incredibly important’’ for a child’s health, mental health, immunity and growth, though the exact amount needed varied among individuals.
‘‘If a child is happy and functioning well, they don’t need more sleep,’’ Hiscock said. ‘‘If they’re grumpy, moody or upset there can be lots of causes but they may need more sleep.’’
Andrew Harb, general manager at wholesaler Medisca, said melatonin was a ‘‘godsend’’
‘‘I’ve been doing this for more than 25 years and we’ve certainly seen a significant increase in the use of melatonin.’’
Maree Barnes
for the whole family. One study done with children with autism showed children taking melatonin were getting to sleep half an hour earlier than those taking a placebo and this was measurably reducing stress for their parents.
How melatonin works
Melatonin is the natural hormone released by the pineal gland that regulates your circadian rhythm – your natural body clock that determines sleepiness and wakefulness in a 24-hour cycle.
‘‘It’s why we start feeling tired in the evening and wake up in the morning,’’ Barnes said. ‘‘ It’s not actually a sedative, it doesn’t bomb you out. The supplement just augments that naturally occurring hormone.’’
There are many reasons why someone might find it hard to switch off their mind and fall asleep but melatonin is particularly popular for adults and children on the autism spectrum disorder, or with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, epilepsy, Williams syndrome and anxiety disorders.
Most melatonin is rapid release, so it should be taken shortly before bedtime. As it is not a sedative, the effect will wear off if you take the medicine but then decide to watch more TV, for example.