My 5 year old was given Clonidine. We had to stop giving half a pill in the morning because of her sleeping at school so now it’s the whole pill at night. Has anyone else seen improvements with the child and this? I know every kid is different but I’m curious. Right now it’s this or Ritalin and I really don’t want to put her on that. Once she turns 6 the insurance will start to pay for more options but that won’t be for another 11 months
She seems slightly more focused when she is playing and some days she seems calmer but other days not so much.
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JenD94
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We just switched my son to the extended release clonidine because of the same reason and it has help with his sleepiness he was having from the regular formula. We have seen a slight improvement but nothing that make it a success yet. I may see about upping the mg amount as he is handling the low dose he is taking now. I do like this better than the other meds he has been on in the past however.
Never heard of that Medicine. If it's making ur child sleepy u need to tell the pediatrician! Not suppose to make her sleepy. My son takes Focalin which is working. 15 mg twice a day 10 mg at end of day. He takes a sleeping pill called Intuniv before he goes to bed.
The psychiatrist told me when she prescribed it that it might make her sleepy that’s why we moved the entire dose to the evenings. She told me it was originally sold as a high blood pressure medication but also helps adhd kids slow down
Yeah she conks out about an hour after taking it. I let her watch an episode on Netflix which is her calm down time. So maybe it would be sooner without the show.
With half the pill she woke up in the middle of the night but the whole pill seems to be working for now.
Mine, too! He would wake up almost every night with a nightmare, and either his Dad or I would end up sleeping the rest of the night with him. Not with Clonidine, though.
My now six year old is also taking Clonidine. I suspect he's on the same dose as your daughter. We also had to take him off Clonidine during the day because he would just randomly fall asleep. But then I also found out that Clonidine is prescribed to help kids with autism sleep because they are notoriously bad sleepers. My son has ADHD, but there is a very strong sensory component. He doesn't like certain sounds or smells, etc.
Surprise surprise, our son was also a notoriously bad sleeper. We would put him to bed at 8:00 pm, and he would still be up at 10:00, 10:30 pm. He now falls asleep soon after going to bed. More importantly, I swear we see an improvement in his behavior when he wakes up in the morning, like the pill is leveling out his mood and focus for a couple of more hours. In fact, last night, we only had half a pill left, so he missed half a dose. Well, this morning I got a call because my distraught son was in the principal's office sobbing uncontrollably.
Unfortunately, because he can't take Clonidine during the day, he has been taking Straterra, which makes him queasy. So far, the jury is out on that particular medication. Clonidine is the only medication where we think we've seen a difference. Unfortunately, my son can't take the Extended Release because he doesn't weigh enough for the smallest dosage.
Your son sounds a lot like my daughter. She would sometimes stay up half the night before we put her on meds. She would sleep later if that happened but I’m glad she’s going to sleep earlier.
Kind of glad I found this post. My son (7 almost 8 years old) is on Vyvanse and it works great during the day (he is doing well so far in school and I’m so happy about that), but he is so moody in the evening when it wears off and he has a hard time going to sleep. His pediatrician recommended having his school give him 1/2 a clonidine right before school is done to help with the evening moodiness and sleep trouble. I haven’t decided what to do yet because my son already hates having to take the Vyvanse, I don’t really need to struggle with him to take medication twice a day. I’m glad to hear other parents think it helps.
My son was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD around September 2017. He also has night terrors. We put him on Clonidine-1/2 pill 2x a day and whole pill before bed. His night terrors stopped and he is much more agreeable when it is working. At times he seems like a zombie though. And when it wears off-watch out. I wish there was something that worked more evenly throughout the day. He is in 2nd grade and although his teacher didn't report any problems before ( he also had her last year) she says she notices a big difference.
Clondine is what I take before I go to bed and have been for 6 years,I take concerta in the morning ,I was takeing adderall when I was younger but it has been known to cause severe stomach aches,to the point were I was crying .
Clonidine is generally given to help ADHD kids go to sleep so I’m surprised it was prescribed for day use. Since my son was 8 he took 1 ml pill every night and would be a sleep within an hour. He also had bad nightmare at times. As he got older we had to increase his dose but the nightmares would get worse so I started combining a melatonin gummy + a 1 ml of clonidine and that helped. I would give the melatonin an hour before the clonidine and that helped calm
Him down but he could still function. He’s now 13 and we recently took him off the clonidine and are now just using melatonin. His decision and he says he feels better off it but it does take him long to shut down his brain. We weened him off for a month and he’s not as groggy in the morning. Like you we also didn’t want to put our son on ADHD meds when he was diagnosed in Kindergarten but we had no choice given he had no impulse control. It definitely helped him and we saw a big difference with the meds,
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9 yo daughter off meds
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I am new, need guidance to help my daughter with ADHD.
Will it ever get better? Am I making the right decisions for my beautiful child? Drained mommy!
Suggestions for Coping with morning behavior prior to taking medication
