My youngest child has a terrible time sleeping at night. He is four years old with Autism, Adhd and Parasomina. We've tried melotonin, which did work with our older son but not with the youngest. If we really need him to sleep we give him benedryl and I feel terrible for doing that.
A few months ago we got a referal to a specialist at the Brook Army Medical Center. He recommend putting our son on Guanfacsine. We tried it for one day and my husband felt it made our son zone out. He still didn't sleep well. So we didn't give him any more medication. My husband was fearful of our son being on a blood pressure medication, thought it my do more damage than good. Has anyone else been on this drug? if so did it help your child? Does anyone know of anything else we could try? I cant remember the last time my son slept through the night.
My son was on Guanfasine for about 3 weeks. It did make him very tired, but he still had trouble getting through the whole night. It made him nap in the day (which he never does!) so it messed with his nighttime sleep. I think it also gave him nightmares because he would be screaming his head off in the middle of the night. I didn't see a lot of results with that drug - it actually scared me a little. His tantrums were about the same while on the drug and that's why I tried him on it in the first place. Sorry I am not much help. I think there are old posts on this site that have more information that might help. Good luck.What was the melatonin dosage? Have you tried to increase it (obviously talk to your doc first).
I know this is an off the wall question, but how are his stools? Are they soft and/or super smelly? I wonder if he may be having some yeast overgrowth issues. Just a thought. You can google it to find out more info.
Thanks for the info. We use liquid melotonin, only way our kid would take it. I'll look more into the yeast, thanks for mentioning that.