Melatonin

I went to the doctors today with poor old Billy who has an ear infection. We were up all night as it popped last night and he was in agony. I had an appointment to discuss things about Beth with Mark but we changed it to taking Bill instead. Mark was very good though and was ok about me talking about Beth too.

I had put on facebook that Beth has been having problems getting to sleep and several people (thanks guys) suggested that I tried Melatonin. As Beth is on Lovan (anti anxiety) and Singulair (asthma preventer) I was unsure of whether melatonin would react with these. Mark assured me that it would be ok though he had reservations as to whether there in fact was any validity to the claim that it helps people sleep. I said that I didn’t care about whether it may or may not, as long as it didn’t hurt Beth I would try anything.

My regular readers will know that I have been having trouble with Beth getting to sleep of late. We’ve also had the problem of her waking in the night, even going out the front door at one stage. I have tried aromatherapy blends by giving her soothing massages but she seems to be so hyper than nothing will work. We tried cutting out sugars which made no difference either. I did notice that on the counter at the chemist was a natural therapy for restless legs so if this does not work I might give that a try too. I’m at my wits end at the moment, what with Bill being sick and Bridie’s selective mutism getting slowly worse, Beth’s moods and sleeplessness is, in the words of my lovely friend Bec, “doing my head in!”

We took Beth to England with us on a family holiday when she was 18 months. Crazy I know but we didn’t know then what we know now. She was actually quite well behaved. She wasn’t walking yet but was so big already, it was odd to see this great big girl crawling around. On the way we decided to try the old trick of Phenergan which is meant to make kids sleep for several hours.

I love going on planes. I love everything about them, from the fact that you have nothing to do but read or watch tv or play games, to the hot flannels they give you after a meal. I even love the food, though I love hospital food too! I think it’s the fact that you just get your meals brought to you without doing anything and you never know what it’ll be. Going on a plane with an 18 month old, to England of all places, is a different matter. We decided to try the sedation alternative but unfortunately for us Beth was in the minority of kids who actually get really hyper instead of sleepy! Now that was fun! Of course at that age they’re hard to entertain. Nowadays my kids would play their ds’s or on the computers on the plane but not only were those things not invented then, she would have been too young for them.

We’re trying the melatonin out tonight for the first time. I can only hope that Kevin the Chemist was right, that it wont have the same effect! Fingers crossed.