We are battling the beast of sleep, no sleep to be exact. I have a 46 lb. ,4yr old boy who is on guanfacine 1 mg 3x's a day. We have cut out all naps during the day and added 3 mg of melatonin and 12.5 mg of benadril at night This is giving him 4 hrs of sleep. He wakes ready for the day (by Dr. advice) we repeat right away and it takes 3-4 hrs to return to sleep and again about 4 hrs is what he gets. This of course is interupted by what we think are nightmares. Crying ,kicking, thrashing and is not able to be awaken from them. Is there any other ideas????? Thanks, Austinsmom
I'm on the same boat. My 5 years old daughter goes to sleep at 9pm and wakes up ready to go at 2am. It takes at least 3 hours for her to go back to sleep. 2 Mg of Melatonin help a whole lot to sleep the first 4 hours and to set a "Time to go to bed habit". Under the sugestion of other person in the comments I have started to give her 5-HTP before going to bed with the Melatonin and so far so good we are on the second week without any bad night. She wakes up but she goes back to sleep in 15 minutes and half of the nights she just sleeps the whole night. 5-HTP is converted in Melatonin and Seratonin by our bodies so in a way it becomes a really slow release Melatonin remedy. I found also very useful some B-6 vitamin and Magnesium in the morning. That keeps her somehow more alert during the day (Better eye contact and more specific language) and she is more tired at night. I hope this helps somehow.
I had the same problem with my now 9 year old with Asperger's. We tried the melatonin and it worked for a bit. We ended up doing a 6 month stretch of Trazodone (12.5 mg). It worked wonders in getting her body clock in sync. Now we do 50 mg of 5-HTP and 3mg of melatonin each night and so far, so good. I was so happy with the Trazodone since it wasn't addictive, and once we reached our desired results, we were able to just stop the meds.
As far as the dreams, my daughter had wicked night terrors. The Trazodone also helped with that. I hope I've helped just a bit!
Becca
How horrible. I don't have any personal suggestions. Did you try searching the site for sleep? There are several suggestions throughout the site. A recent research article shows that clonidine may be effective: http://autism.healingthresholds.com/research/the-use-of-clonidine-for-severe-
Also EFA's and maybe vitamin C...
Good luck.
I don't know the answer to your question, as I have struggled with getting my kids to go to sleep at night. I have an 8 yr old with Autism and boy/girl 5 yr-old twins on the Autism Spectrum. We've tried Valerian, Melatonin and Serenite Jr. Melatonin worked the best...at first. After awhile on Melatonin, our kids "adjusted" and were waking in the middle of the night. We finally had to stop the melatonin and just struggle with them at bedtime. We did away with naps early on, but I am fortunate that once my kids do fall asleep they seem to sleep most of the night, getting 7 to 8 hours. My problem, is that the oldest will be awake for an hour or two, sometimes 3 after going to bed at 9:00 pm. I hope there is answer to your problem, because I need one too. It must be hard to get only 4 hours of sleep.
My son is 11 years old now. I spent the first 4 years of his life with out sleep. I couldn’t get him to sleep and sometimes he would wake with night terrors. Then getting him up in the morning was a nightmare for me. His Neurologist prescribed 3 to 6 mg of melatonin. Speak to your doctor about raising the dosage. This helps tremendously. The doctor prescribed the melatonin to be compounded into a liquid so he could take it and it works faster. Now that he is older I normally only give it to him while the days are longer. Have hope he grew out of the night terrors. However, during the night terrors I found it helpful to always have a cartoon in the DVD player. Something fast moving likes “the Coyote and Roadrunner”. This would normally stop the screaming and calm him down and allow me to get him back to sleep. Good luck and sweet dreams.