my son won't sleep! long

[MidgeD79]

My ds (9) takes adderall for adhd and started seraquel for autisim meltdowns about a month ago. The seraquel is an anti-psychotic drug that may cause drowziness. He takes 1 in the morning and except for the first 2 days of extreme drowziness does ok with it. At night the dr said to give him 2 to help him sleep. The follow-up blood work put his blood sugar at 136. He developed a HUGE night time appetite and was sneeking all sorts of food into his room and not sleeping. The dr increased it to 3 to force sleep and it still didn't work except make his hunger worse. He has not gained any weight and weighs about 60 pounds. On the 3 pill nights he would fall asleep around 11:30 pm. I took him off the meds and he was still up at 3am. I need ideas of how to help him sleep. We tried melonin and it worked for about 2 weeks. He seems to have a 10-14 day cycle of things working and that includes behavior management. During the school year I have 4 ways of waking him up in the morning at 6am and they have to be rotated every 2 weeks. I know this is long, but school starts in 20 days and I can't take the violence of getting him up anymore.

 

[robin09]

My ds (9) takes adderall for adhd and started seraquel for autisim meltdowns about a month ago. The seraquel is an anti-psychotic drug that may cause drowziness. He takes 1 in the morning and except for the first 2 days of extreme drowziness does ok with it. At night the dr said to give him 2 to help him sleep. The follow-up blood work put his blood sugar at 136. He developed a HUGE night time appetite and was sneeking all sorts of food into his room and not sleeping. The dr increased it to 3 to force sleep and it still didn't work except make his hunger worse. He has not gained any weight and weighs about 60 pounds. On the 3 pill nights he would fall asleep around 11:30 pm. I took him off the meds and he was still up at 3am. I need ideas of how to help him sleep. We tried melonin and it worked for about 2 weeks. He seems to have a 10-14 day cycle of things working and that includes behavior management. During the school year I have 4 ways of waking him up in the morning at 6am and they have to be rotated every 2 weeks. I know this is long, but school starts in 20 days and I can't take the violence of getting him up anymore.

DD 8 (soon to be 9 in october) Has been taking Strattera for adhd and Seroquel for autism symptoms... ie, anger, meltdowns, tapping and touching...

She is taking 100 mgs at night. Still not sleeping well, in fact saturday night she stayed up the entire night, I awoke at 5 am to find balloon creatures throughout the living room. Dr. has advised us to increase to 150 mgs at night. I just don't know either, not happy giving so much meds, especially an anti-pschotic. The Dr. also told us she should gain weight with the seroquel, hasn't happened yet and it's been about 4 or 5 months (she weighs about 48 pounds) , I guess her excess energy burns it all off. She never liked to eat and still doesn't.

Please don't remind me of school wakeups, those are the worst, with my blood pressure going sky high.... I'm seriously thinking of homeschooling because of it. She needs the socialization, and that is one of the reasons I've sent her to school all these years... nursery school, young k, kindergarten, 1, 2 and now 3rd grade. The school doesn't know what to make of her, and she's not mainstreamed, she's bright and knows how to do the things she wants, when she wants to .. but I digress, sorry!

 

[MidgeD79]

I am so glad there are other parents out there with the same problem. We can commiserate together.