Melatonin and Other Thoughts

I usually give small doses of melatonin to my kids at bedtime.  Yeah, yeah, I know there might be all kinds of mysterious side-effects, and it might not be safe to give every night, or even every week.  But anyone who wants to criticize or worry about this decision is welcome to come along and put my kids to bed, and is especially invited to show up on one of the nights that Hibiscus kneels on the floor and screams at the top of her lungs for ten minutes straight.... or thirty, or forty, and then throws up.  (Which, thank you God, has not happened in several months.)  I can practically guarantee that you will feel much more dismissive about the negative possibilities of melatonin, when faced with the daily realities of my kids at bedtime.

Besides, in the article about how dangerous it is for to use melatonin daily, always ends with some parent saying something about "I know I should have a routine and put the kids to bed at the same time every night, but it's just too hard for me, and that's just not our parenting strength, so we just give them melatonin instead."  Which makes it easy to feel superior to those weak parents who depend on chemical sleep aids.  But I have a routine that is as crystallized as knowing in which order we brush teeth, and who hangs up the towels, and it happens within fifteen minutes of the exact same time every day.  You can't get more precise than that when you have three chaotic children.  And I still start it off with melatonin.

But these poor kids have not yet been farther than a few weeks from changing families, changing houses, changing countries, changing schools, or changing available family members.  Life is rough.  It helps to be able to wake up in the morning well-rested, because you didn't spend two hours traipsing back out to the living room to ask mama if there are any monsters coming in the windows.  And I know that because I've forgotten once or twice.  No more.



Both of the older two children have serious regulatory and sensory issues, and I think that it is very likely that they would be the kind of children for whom doctors would actually prescribe melatonin -- in fact, my son's doctor actually did just that last year.  So I don't have much guilt about giving them a small dose every night, but Buttercup has a fairly balanced system, and I would like to get her out of the habit of needing it.

Today she didn't nap, and she did play outside a lot, so she was plenty tired, so I decided to give it a try.  Although Daddy left for Europe a week ago, so maybe "not in the middle of transitions" doesn't actually apply!

We got ready for bed on time.  We did our routine the usual way.  I turned off the light and started on blessings.  Buttercup was wiggly waiting for her turn, so after her blessing I reminded her to tell her hands to go to sleep, and no more banging and no more talking now.  Then I moved on.

While I was doing Hibiscus's blessing, despite reminders, I heard increasingly more thumping of pillows, chitter-chatter, and eventually the bed started shaking with some sort of gymnastics.  Maybe singing and wiggling oneself to sleep would be acceptable in some households, but all three of my children sleep in the same room, and Buttercup sleeps in the same bed with Emerson, who was already starting to fall asleep.  One singing child is going to set the whole place on fire with energy very quickly.

I tried to not interrupt Hibiscus's prayer time, but as soon as I was done, I snatched up the little firebrand and put her in the guest bedroom.  I plopped her on the bed and told her calmly and firmly it was time to go to sleep.  And I shut the door and left.

A few months ago, she was having sleep trouble, and she would wait quietly, and come out of the bedroom sadly after a while, and I would wrap her to sleep.  But that was when she was going through her "infant regression" sleep phase -- as I thought of it myself; it was also coupled with waking up four to six times a night and needing to be soothed back to sleep.  I didn't want to get into that habit again, as I felt like she was not doing any particular newborn regressing at this moment, she just wanted to stay up and play.  Besides, she will only nap when she is wrapped, which is okay, but she does need to fall asleep sometimes when she is not being worn.

Tonight I was surprised to hear nothing further after shutting the door.  But all parents know that silence can mean "trouble" as easily as it can mean "sleep," and I wanted to kiss her goodnight anyways.  So after five minutes or so I peeked in.

"Look, I do-ed it!" she greeted me cheerfully.  I think she meant getting the entire comforter off the bed, which seemed to be the change.  It's kind of a boring room.  I laid her back down and told her it was time to go to sleep.

"Now do bessings," she chirped.  I said goodnight.  "Now do bessings for me-eee!" she insisted.
"I've already done blessings for you," I reminded her.
"Is okay, do more bessings!' she suggested.
I declined, and continued to leave the room.
"Bad mama!" she yelled at my back, which is her go-to criticism lately.

As I left, she was starting to scream in the familiar toddler-not-getting-her-way sulky tone.  I shut the door.  There is no useful response to "bad mama!"


I did a few more things around the house, but the crying continued.  I was hoping that she would get tired of fussing, which happens sometimes, and either go to sleep, or I would go back in again at that point.  Then I figured that maybe we were trying cry-it-out, toddler version.  I would never, ever use cry-it-out with a baby, but I figure maybe the situation changes when the opening gambit is "bad mama!"

It wasn't more than a minute or two after the screams changed into real, upset cries, and no more than three of four minutes of crying total.  I had taken note before I left, and the room was boring but there was light coming in from outside, so it wasn't dark.  I didn't hear any bumps or sudden increases in volume that would indicate an accident, and no banging on the door.  It was basically long enough for me to gather what I needed to do, sigh, and gird myself for returning to the bedtime fray.

Adopted children can often have abandonment issues, and experts warn that forced isolation isn't the best parenting method for them, because it can awaken their deepest fears -- which does not help improve one's manners.  Just like any, ordinary, special child can have all kinds of fears or thoughts or lonelinesses, and I personally don't think that forced isolation is a good parenting method for any children, who can't explain themselves either.  So we didn't make it long enough to even kind of be a cry-it-out.

I went to check on her.  I could hear the door handle rattling, and I opened it up and found my little girl, totally hysterical.  I picked her up and she clung to my neck.

Then she threw up.  Then there was a giant explosion in her diaper region.  Then she had an asthma attack.

She was doing that sad and adorable little thing where she was trying to hold her vomit in her cupped hands; also while gasping for breath, and burping more vomit up.  I set her on the bathroom counter and cleaned her up and gave her her inhalers, and then I picked her up again.  More toots came cascading out.  I held her and rocked her and patted her back for a while, and she finally said something to me in her tiny little squeaky voice.

"What's that?" I asked.  "What do you want?"
"Me want to go sleepy... your back," she offered, and patted my shoulder suggestively.

After all that, I couldn't resist.  She went "my back," which means getting wrapped up.  She spent a long time snuggling and looking sadly over my shoulder, but finally I peeked up and the big eyes were closed.



So "left alone" is not an option.  I have ruled out "playing enthusiastically on sibling's bed.".  "Crying by self" is definitely a really, really bad choice.

Melatonin is looking better all the time.