Four New Hampshire daycare employees allegedly spiked children’s food with the sleep supplement melatonin and were arrested on Thursday.
After a six-month investigation, police discovered that children had been furtively dosed with melatonin. Officers arrested the daycare owner, 52-year-old Sally Dreckmann, along with three of her employees: Traci Innie, 51; Kaitlin Filardo and Jessica Foster, who are both 23.
Melatonin is a sleep aid supplement that is sold over the counter. But the long-term impacts of melatonin on children are not widely known.
Furthermore, there have been several reports of children being overdosed with melatonin in recent years. About 7% of emergency department visits between 2012 and 2021 were for children who had accidentally ingested melatonin, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine issued a health warning for melatonin use around kids and adolescents, warning against the lack of US Food and Drug Administration oversight for the sleep aid.
Having parented a toddler, I can understand the impulse. But you don’t do it.
Having seen a toddler before, I also understand wanting to do it.
Teens are even louder. 😶
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I don’t know that I would ever use it on a kid, but that wasn’t what I was talking about. I was talking about the impulse to drug a kid to calm them down. Pretty much every parent has had that thought at one point or another. But it’s just a silly fantasy you’re not supposed to act on.
I let my baby smoke a fat joint to try to get to sleep, but it didn’t work. He just kept wanting to eat and wouldn’t shut up about the federal legalization of marijuana.
Worst advice I’ve ever gotten.
True story: My grandmother, who spent a lot of time watching me while my parents worked, used to make wine out of sour cherries she grew in the garden and I had this fond memory of her regularly giving me a bowl of the delicious cherries from the bottom of the wine vat to eat and then one day I realized, “wait a second, those were full of alcohol!” She was clearly doing it to calm me down if I was too hyper.
She was not the best person.
Yeah. The Bear has an episode where they Xanax the kids on accident. Hilarious but something that should never happen intentionally.
We gave our son children’s Benadryl to get him to sleep, but:
He was five.
He couldn’t sleep because he broke his arm earlier that day and we had to wait until the next day to get a cast on it (so the swelling would go down). He just had a splint, so every time he moved, it hurt.
When we called the ER to ask what to do so he could sleep, they said anything they would do would require him to be admitted, so the best solution was to just give him a dose of children’s Benadryl.
He was our kid, not someone else’s kid entrusted to our care with the understanding that we wouldn’t drug him.
Plenty of parents have given their kids whiskey though it’s not as common as it was when I was a kid
Sure. But that doesn’t make it something you should do.
I agree. I doubt a doctor would recommend it. People in this thread are.actibg like it’s unheard of though. It’s super common especially during teething.
The FDA and CDC do not recommend melatonin to be given to children under 2 yrs of age tho. So that’s an issue.
I’m sure they don’t recommend jack Daniels either
They are more into Glenlivet.
Nap time!
Ah yes. This and Kidstoned chewable Valium! Works wonders for peace.
FDA guidelines on melatonin say to not give it to a child under 3.
You do know that melatonin can fuck up an adult’s circadian rhythm. Long-term use will probably fuckup a child’s circadian rhythm more, which can affect a lot of things way down the line.
Edit/Addendum: though this isn’t really the best study, it should still be taken into consideration, especially given how little research has been done https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6362935/
Melatonin is quite commonly used as a sleep aid for children on the autism spectrum, or with ADHD, etc. Disrupted sleep, or insomnia can be a big problem and lead to a greater difficulty for children to handle stress or stimulus and can lead to a lot more meltdowns or difficulties with things they can otherwise handle. We used it regularly with our son (as recommended by a doctor) and it made a world of difference for his sleep and then his ability to handle the next day.
No, this is absolutely terrible advice!
You, as the parent, make sure the child is currently safe, then give yourself a timeout. No joke! It’s incredibly difficult to destress with an infant around. The moment you are at all tempted by ideas like dosing your kid, it’s time to step away - isolate yourself, recenter, and try a better approach (even if it’s the hundreth time).
Anyway, I’ve seen multiple statements by qualified professionals about melatonin not being safe for kids. Unless you have sources to back your claim, I completely reject it. That’s just the way it works…
Genuine question: Why do you overwrite most of your comments? There’s no Karma here like on Reddit, and you can just make an anonymous account.