8 yo son with terrible insomnia on Adderall XL

[momwifedaughtersis]

My son has been on Adderall XL 15mg for about 6 weeks, and in past 3 weeks has developed terrible insomnia. He just lays in bed and can’t fall asleep for hours. A few times he has been up until 3.30 or 4am. He takes 5mg melatonin around 7.30-8 and is fully in bed by 9. Our psychiatrist suggested to give the Adderall earlier in the morning, which we tried but is not helping much. We tried listening to some bedtime meditations but my son had a hard time paying attention to it ... he said his body just wanted to do something active. (Also he can’t stand the temptation of the iphone sitting there.) I am also frustrated bc I’m losing sleep due to my son’s insomnia, and of course there’s my husband/kid’s dad snoring away. Right now it’s 12.30am and I can hear 8yo puttering around in the bathroom

Anyone else dealing with this? Suggestions?

Thanks!

[Onthemove1971]

I assume the medication is showing great results?

How long has it been that you moved the AM dose earlier.

Do you have him "get out his energy " prior to bed? Our son always gets a burst of energy right before bed. We have our son take Melatonin 30min before bed which really helps, after his energy is out.

There are a number of tips for sleeping, like no screen time at least 30 min. before bed, cool room, etc.. you could look into.

There are also a number of sleep aids: weighted blankets, meditation music.. etc, you could look into these.

Sorry you are having this experience.

[ExhaustedMom23]

My 9 year old son had a similar reaction to Adderall XL. We had to stop the medication because he literally could not sleep at night. It was exhausting for me as well because he woke me up all hours of the night. His doctor suggested we start a sleeping pill, but I wasn't comfortable with that. So, we took him off the medication. Back to the drawing board for us!

[willandgrace]

Are you certain that his insomnia as from the Adderall? I ask because trouble sleeping is an ADHd thing to begin with. I would try more melatonin. My son needs that to sleep. I take it too because melatonin helps me sleep THROUGH the night. I take 10-15 mg. Good luck. And btw, my son struggled with the right meds. we ended up with Dyanavel which has worked the best. It is smoother and there is no crash at the end of the day. Plus, it's a liquid so I can manipulate the dosage myself to find the right amount. It has had the least side effects for my son.

[HelpmewithmyJ in reply to willandgrace]

Hi

My 8 yr old daughter is on Adderall XR 15mg as well. She was newly diagnosed in June and we have seen positive results like with concentration, her actually being able to finish her work or any task we set forth. We also see other issues increase tremendously since the medication like being defiant, whiny, screaming and now she even starts to break or bend things up if we are telling her to stop doing things that she knows is wrong. I wonder if ghat medication you speak of would word better for her? What type of liquid is it? Is the taste bad? Sweet? Fruity?

[willandgrace in reply to HelpmewithmyJ]

It's called Dyanavel. It does not taste bad at all. I guess it's more on the sweet side. Our pediatrician def recommends it over Adderall- She said it's smoother- no crash at the end of the day. My son had taken Vyvanse before Dyanavel, and it worked well until it didn't. He became very irritable and sort of sad while on it. Then we tried Dyanavel and he said from the beginning that it was better for him than Vyvanse. Even his appetite isn't affected as much. It is not a generic and can be expensive depending on your insurance. There is a manufacturer's coupon that takes $60 off so we end up paying $163 each month for it. ugh. But it's worth it. I hope you find the best medication for your daughter. I know that it's not easy sometimes. Is it possible your daughter needs a lower dose of Adderall? Anyway, I do recommend that you try Dyanavel. It's in the same family as Adderall, so if Adderall works for her, then Dyanavel prob will too.

[willandgrace]

Have you tried laying down with him at night and rubbing his back? I know that's not easy to commit to each night but when I do that for my son he goes right to sleep. ADHD kids often need that kind of thing in order to fall asleep. It works like a charm for my son and always has - It's just that I don't do it as often as I should.

[Lindsay3411]

Hello, my 10 yo son takes 15mg of Adderall XR each day before school. We have not see the sleep issue, but he is extremely active. This helps to metabolize the medicine quicker. We used to give him a booster dose of Adderall ( short acting- 4 hours max) before soccer practice and he still would sleep like a baby.

Have you tried physical activity? Just getting him out for a walk or some active play before bed?

I also give my son CBD gummies- this helps with the “come down” period after meds wear off and helps sleep.

Sorry you are going through this!

[Skellington]

I'm very new to group, and my 3 year old grandson has yet to be diagnosed (but I recognize behaviors from my older children and others)... anyway, I, myself, take adderall for ADD, and my doctor told me to never take it past like 2pm for just that reason. Terrible insomnia. I was supposed to take it twice a day (20mg) but I often take it only once, because if I remember too late in the day it's not worth the sleeplessness. Does your son take the slow release or quick acting? (Not sure technical terms) but I have heard that this can be important in that some people do better on one or the other. I think mine, for example, act quicker and only last 4 to 6 hours per dose (?) Which I find after like 3 or so hours I begin to feel the effects dwindling. On the other hand, yesterday I took one and then feel asleep on the couch promptly after. So here you see it can also depend on the person and perhaps on many other factors, daily, really. The other thing I would like to add is rthday l that I had been giving my grandson (I have custody of him) melatonin and it seemed to work great for bedtime, but then it stopped working, as far as the time it took to get him to settle down AND he started having frequent sleep disturbances during the night. So I did some research and found that it can actually cause problems like that if used long term. It builds up too much in your system and if you have too much it no longer serves its purpose of alerting your body to the bedtime (night/ dark triggering signal to go to sleep) ...

I stopped the melatonin and he's doing MUCH better now. It does take about one or two hours of kind of *down time* before bed, but once asleep he does not wake up in the night anymore! This is wonderful because it was like 12am, 3am, etc wake-up times and a horror to get him settled back in, which caused real problems when it was time for me to wake up and function, especially with a kind of sleep deprived 3 year old with hyperactivity.

I hope I didn't ramble too much and that something I said can help you!