Being fairly new to the blogosphere I found it difficult to find respectable blogs. Being sleep deprived myself, I ventured on a quest to find how sleep deprivation affected children, I believe I found something better. Dr. Steven Parker put it best when he said that ' there is nothing more beautiful than a sleeping child.' Anyone who has ever taken care of a child for more than a couple of hours will agree, but to what extremes will parents go to ensure that their 'little angel' falls asleep? I stumbled across two blog posts, which talked about the use of melatonin as a sleep aid for children. The first post I found was "Is it wise to drug your kids to sleep?" written by Dr. Steven Parker which questions the use of melatonin as a sleep aid for normal children. The second post, "Melatonin well-tolerated sleep aid in children with autism," I found at Brain Mysteries and discuses the use of melatonin as a sleep aid for autistic children. I believe that it is imperative to examine the use of melatonin in both groups."Is it wise to drug your kids to sleep?"
Comment:
'Dr. P,' I too share your concerns about using medications to improve a child’s sleep habits. I recently babysat three of my cousins-ages 4, 5, 7; I found myself wanting to rip my hair out around 10:30 p.m. when they were still awake. I tried everything, warm milk, bedtime story, warm bath, but to no avail and by this time I was completely exhausted and ready to collapse but my cousins were as wide-eyed as ever. Being a college student and not having children of my own I found myself relieved when my aunt and uncle finally arrived. The children were no longer my responsibility, whether they would immediately fall asleep or stayed up for another 2 hours was no longer my concern. I can only imagine what parents go through when their children will not fall asleep, and there is not anyone to rescue them. So after a couple of sleepless nights and trying days it is only normal for parents to want some relief after feeling like they have exhausted all avenues, but I agree that medication is not the answer. It is not possible to compare the sleep habits of healthy children with those that suffer from autism because autistic children tend to produce less melatonin than their normal counterpart. I also wonder if the children's parents look for other causes that may be troubling their child? For instance there have been an increase of earthquakes felt in Southern California, and I know a child who refused to fall asleep because they were scared. Unfortunately, the parents of this child were not aware of this until two sleepless nights had past. Also, I read in an article that taking melatonin on a regular basis reduces the amount your body produces naturally, and therefore establishes a dependence on orally taking melatonin. Shouldn't this be considered a long term effect?
"Melatonin well-tolerated sleep aid in children with autism"
Comment:
I would like to thank you for a very informative post, and it was only earlier today that I read a blog post which made me aware of the use of melatonin as a sleep a
id for autistic children. I am glad to see that the parents of children with such a debilitating illness can find some temporary relief, allowing the child and therefore themselves to sleep through the night. Lack of sleep causes negative health effects for all children, such as obesity, but I cannot imagine the effects sleep deprivation has on autistic children. As you may be aware, we live in a society where medication seems to be the quick solution to most problems, but I was pleased to see Beth Malow suggest that the melatonin treatment be accompanied with sleep behavioral therapies. From the study led by Malow, you stated that three of the children reported mild side effects, what were the side effects and are they typical for melatonin use? It was recently brought to my attention that parents of non-autistic children were given melatonin as a sleep aid to their children. I wonder if the melatonin has the same effect in both groups of children. I would like to know how the children's day time behavior changed, and are the hours of sleep a child gets correlated with the daytime behavior in all autistic children? The families of autistic children already deal with so much in terms of the child's care, I am curious to know if there are any documented long-term effects that come with daily melatonin use?
