Part of our bedtime routine is to take melatonin before bed, each of the boys have been taking it for a while now as a means to slow down their brain to rest. Given to them with pediatrician permission, each takes a 5mg pill, as the youngest boy is now old enough to swallow the pill versus taking liquid. I thought this was grand, as I no longer had to purchase two different types of melatonin. I may have been wrong on how easy and grand this would be …
One night last week, I gave K-man his bit of milk and his melatonin pill to swallow down. I asked, “okay bud did you swallow it?” K-man nodded. Yup the pill had been swallowed. Aj then asked for some milk please so I handed him the cup that K-man had used to swallow his pill, as there was still quite a bit of milk leftover in the cup.
Next thing I hear …
Ummm Mama why is there a pill in the bottom of this cup?
In that one sentence, spoken by Aj, I realized exactly what had been going on the last two nights and exactly what my little six year old son is capable of doing … you see the prior two nights I was having a heck of a time getting K-man to fall asleep. It was as if I was back a year or two and he could not fall asleep, I had no clue what was up and why the 5mg was not working for him.
K-man had been pretending to swallow his pill the last two nights, including this particular night.
I was upset. I was so upset. My six year old son had been deceiving me for two nights and here got caught on night three of the deceit. He replied to me that he has slept fine the last two nights and so he didn’t need to take the pill. Boy is he wrong, because he did not sleep well the two nights prior and in turn was starting to turn into quite a handful for me. I made K-man swallow this pill with a firm, you must take this to sleep well and it is not a choice, then explained how wrong it is to lie to his Mama and that I am sad for him lying; please do not ever lie to Mama again.
We shall see where this leads …. here’s hoping he does take the melatonin properly on our next attempt of bedtime routine when he returns from his Dad’s house. Always keeping me on my toes ….
Oh wow — yes having 4 of my own, I’ve had plenty of experiences like this over the years. I’m sure he will do better with taking it in the nights to come. stay encouraged!
I’m a mom of four and this sounds familiar. One of my kids couldn’t swallow a pill until she was almost 12!
Ah the adventures of parenting. Just when you think you have things figured out they throw a curve ball at us. Got to love the adventures of it all though…
Oh yes, the joys of parenting. I have a few little tricksters myself. I will admit I couldn’t swallow pills until I was 15… LOL. So I get that whole issue too.
Kids sure do keep us on our toes. My son wasn’t a good sleeper when he was little. I wish I had tried Melatonin with him.
Oh, I feel your pain. It is so hard to get your little ones to fall asleep especially when they won’t take the necessary medicine. Hopefully your youngest starts taking his medicine again, good luck.
What a little stinker to trick you like that. I hope he starts taking it and that it really does help him sleep better.
I’ve had similar experiences with my own kids. My daughter also spit hers in the garbage when I wasn’t looking.
That fact that your six year old can even swallow pills is a feat in itself. Sleep is so important, especially for kids!