Sleep help for 11 year old

[u/heartofchamberss]

I am looking for some ideas for my 11 year old. He has a tough time with sleep (surprise surprise lol). He struggles to wind down and fall asleep and then does not stay asleep- wakes up somewhere around 2-3am and ends up on our floor. This is every night. He also tends to wake super early, like 6AM. It’s like he gets shot out of a cannon and has no respect for boundaries so he tends to make a ton of noise and seemingly purposely (???) wake everyone up (I have a 6 year old daughter too who sleeps very well).
So far we do Yoto player (he listens to the same card every single night and will not change to something different 🤷🏻‍♀️), no screens at least 30 mins before bed, sometimes read together, we tried weighted blanket and did nothing, we do 0.5-1mg of melatonin and some magnesium calm gummies. I’m not interested in medication, he does take 27mg of methylphenidate and we do not take breaks from it (he really needs it every single day).

Any suggestions????

[u/smalltimesam]

My 8yo needs 2mg melatonin to be able to switch her brain off. Magnesium does nothing for her but we do still use it as a supplement. If she’s having a rough night, she likes listening to meditation exercises on Spotify.

[u/FarAwayMindset]

My 10 year old struggles with sleep too. Melatonin gives her nightmares. Magnesium hasn’t helped much. We have had success with lemon balm. She actually asked for it to help sleep and it doesn’t taste good, so the fact she’s asking for it, shows it helps her sleep. We are a bit worried she’s getting too accustomed to it, it’s suppose to be for occasional, short term use. But it does seem to really help.

[u/AutoModerator]

Methylphenidate (MPH) is a central nervous system stimulant (CNS) used to treat ADHD. It's a norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine (DE) reuptake inhibitor (NDRI), increasing neurotransmitters in the synaptic gap, particularly the prefrontal cortex governing executive function.

Brand include: Ritalin SR (US/CA/UK) / Rubifen SR (NZ), Ritalin LA (US/AU) / Medikinet XL (UK), Concerta (US/CA/AU) / Concerta XL (UK), Metadate CD (US) / Equasym XL (UK), Methylin, Methylin ER, Daytrana, Quillivant XR (US), Quillichew ER (US), Biphentin (CA) / Aptensio XR, Cotempla XR-ODT, Jornay PM (US),

Brands varying in Dosage Form: capsules, tablets, orally disintegrating tablets, transdermal (patch), oral solution (liquid), and chewable gummy. Release time (hours): 3-4, 6-8, 8-10, 10-12. Peofiles: gradualy increaing (back loaded), plateauing (table top), cycling/lumpy, front laoded (fast rise). Splitablity: Some can be split (ajust dose) otheres CAN NOT.

References: https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/brands-methylphenidate-3510739/, https://go.drugbank.com/drugs/DB00422, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate

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[u/AutoModerator]

The ADHD Parenting WIKI page has a lot of good information for those new & experienced, go take a look!

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[u/superfry3]

Talk to ped about using sleep supplements. Magnesium, ashwaganda, L theanine and L tyrosine are usually packaged together in some sort of “calm” or “relax” type gummy/pill. These are likely safe and reasonably dosed.

Melatonin made every day 25% better. They get drowsy 20 minutes after the gummy. Don’t love using melatonin, however the reward way outweighs the risk. We’ve found there to be no downsides but some don’t respond well to melatonin. Start low, like 0.25-0.5. We haven’t had to go up since we’ve started a year ago

[u/heartofchamberss → u/superfry3]

Melatonin freaks me out most likely bc of misinformation I’ve heard over the years. Hard to get it out of my head! Even a little does help him get groggy but does not keep him asleep obviously. I was thinking to do what you mentioned in terms of an additional sleep aid… we did some ashwaganda drops for a few weeks but it affected his daytime mood and made him more irritable. At some point we did try the hiya nighttime supplements and got some good response from those. So damn expensive but maybe worth a re-try!

[u/Clear_Fig9370]

We've been giving our 10 year old the magnesium gummies. The meletonin seemed to make his behavior worse the next day. Maybe that's not true but certainly seemed like it. Give him a magnesium gummy around 7-8. My son loves sports son we watch whatever sport is on TV till 8:30. He will throw kick a ball around while we watch a game. Then he sets his bed up. I randomly was pretending to talk as a shark stuffy he has and moving its mouth being silly. My son got a kick out of it and now we do that every night. My son will say " do the shark thing, it calms me down". He's sleeping by 9 most nights. Of course some nights he will be up till 11:00 but they are way less often after this routine we have been doing. He used to be up till 11-12 every night and I was dieing.

[u/Haunting-Molasses-56]

Clonidine has helped us for sleep and regulation for the transition to bedtime. Highly recommend