Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it fine for occasional use like overnight flights and adjusting to jet lag (as does our pediatrician). We use a non-gummy brand called Tired Teddies which is a much smaller dose than most gummies (I think 0.3 mg). It ha so made my child much more well-rested and this happy on international trips.

Just an FYI, but 0.3 mg is the recommended dose for a full grown adult, not a 2 year old. Melatonin is regulated as a food supplement and not a drug, so the most pills you see are super high doses, because consumers don't know better and think that "more is better".

What? Adults typically take 2-5mg to start, not 0.3. Perhaps 0.3 could do something in someone very sensitive, but it isn't true that it is a typical adult dose. 1+ is usually where children are at risk. I would be fine with my child taking 0.3 if necessary, but probably wouldn't do so for this reason.

2. What is the right dose of melatonin?

0.3 mg.

“But my local drugstore sells 10 mg pills! When I asked if they had anything lower, they looked through their stockroom and were eventually able to find 3 mg pills! And you’re saying the correct dose is a third of a milligram?!”

Yes. Most existing melatonin tablets are around ten to thirty times the correct dose.

Many early studies were done on elderly people, who produce less endogenous melatonin than young people and so are considered especially responsive to the drug. Several lines of evidence determined that 0.3 mg was the best dose for this population. Elderly people given doses around 0.3 mg slept better than those given 3 mg or more and had fewer side effects (Zhdanova et al 2001). A meta-analysis of dose-response relationships concurred, finding a plateau effect around 0.3 mg, with doses after that having no more efficacy, but worse side effects (Brzezinski et al, 2005). And doses around 0.3 mg cause blood melatonin spikes most similar in magnitude and duration to the spikes seen in healthy young people with normal sleep (Vural et al, 2014).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it fine for occasional use like overnight flights and adjusting to jet lag (as does our pediatrician). We use a non-gummy brand called Tired Teddies which is a much smaller dose than most gummies (I think 0.3 mg). It ha so made my child much more well-rested and this happy on international trips.

Just an FYI, but 0.3 mg is the recommended dose for a full grown adult, not a 2 year old. Melatonin is regulated as a food supplement and not a drug, so the most pills you see are super high doses, because consumers don't know better and think that "more is better".