I’m SO hesitant to even start talking about this, but I’m diving in! As per usual, if you disagree or feel negative about these things, PLEASE keep it to yourself. I mean no disrespect, but these are challenging things, personal details, and I have been careful and prayerful about these decisions. Please be kind and respectful.
We’ve had some challenging times with our Rowan. Goodness, we LOVE Rowan desperately. He has a depth in his heart that is far beyond his years. He has a deeper understanding of God. He loves to care for people, and has always doted on those who are sad or struggling. He is just different, in the BEST ways! On the flip side, Rowan has struggled harder than any of our other children in terms of anger, self control, and rationality. A switch flips, and you can watch him as his brain ticks, and then he seemingly decides to fly off that handle so fast. When he gets into these tantrums, it is completely impossible to talk him down. This has been going on for literal years. And we have worked HARD to help him. I am being vague on purpose, because we have literally tried everything, and so has he. Its been a giant struggle for everyone. But alas, the struggle has continued to ebb and flow, and everyone is being affected. Rowan has essentially been our ticking time bomb.
It breaks my heart that I’m even writing this stuff out :/ I cannot express to you the level of love I have for this boy. Please don’t believe otherwise. I’m just trying to be honest. There has been struggle.
This month specifically, Rowan’s behaviour started to escalate. Not only was he throwing big tantrums multiple times a day, every single day, but he was starting to express what can best be described as hopelessness. He would scream things like “I don’t want to try! I HATE trying!!” If I tried to problem solve with him, he insisted nothing would help. As one particular tantrum wrapped up finally, I snuggled him on his bed and he shook and cried, saying he was so tired of trying. It became perfectly clear to me that he needed extra help. He was asking for it, in his own way. This was beyond “bad behaviour.” It was something else. The way I felt on the inside was very likely the way he felt, too.
Cher offered to help me research and brainstorm. It had been a particularly brutal morning with Rowan. I just couldn’t stop crying :/ It sucked. We looked up all kinds of things, finding new information, and revisiting old ideas. We finally sifted through everything and decided to try something. Just, start. And see. Because really, how much worse could it get?
We went off of Rowan expressing his fatigue, and as I’m sure you got from the title of this blog, we decided to try Melatonin. We did further research, and Cher even called a pharmacy for me. They advised what was a safe dosage for a child. We found some that was on for a good price that was meant to dissolve under the tongue, which felt more doable with a five year old than swallowing a pill. We looked up side effects and decided it was worth trying. We got in touch with Brady and he was absolutely on board. He ducked out of work over lunch to purchase the pills. We were bound and determined to start that very day.
December 11th. We talked Rowan through taking his pill. It was 6:00pm. It felt a little early, with him going to bed at 7:00, but I wanted to see what it did to him, and what level of “tired” he’d hit. I did NOT want to just drug him to sleep. No way, no how. I wanted to see what this did.
So, surprise surprise, Rowan HATED his pill. Not only are the dissolving pills kind of gross in general, but it was also minty, which most of our children do not care for. He kept sticking his tongue out, and it would fall, and then he’d pick it up, but it was half dissolved and just a huge mess. He hated it. I gave him a little swig of juice from the fridge that someone gave us, which was a HUGE treat for him! That softened the blow, for sure. He liked the juice chaser. Who wouldn’t?
He went to play downstairs after he had his little pill. He was kind of quiet, which was nice. No fighting. Usually bedtime brings on a HUGE meltdown, but this day, it didn’t. He complied, and tidied toys easily. He came up for bedtime stuff and expressed that he was tired. But not in that over the top way. More just cozy. His body had slowed right down.
Rowan was asleep by 7:30. Bedtime is never that easy or quick for him. He gets up constantly, sometimes for hours, refusing to sleep. Its awful. There had been no peace in the evenings for literal years. But that night, on December 11th, he was out by 7:30 and didn’t surface until we got him up the next morning. He was cozy and sleepy, but happy and upbeat. He had ZERO tantrums that entire day. Guys, you can’t understand the gravity of that. It was UNREAL. Not a single tantrum in the morning, afternoon, or evening, whereas he used to have at least one in every single one of those slots of time. At one point in the evening, Rowan got hurt playing. He had a little cry, and calmed right down before going back to playing. Again, guys, that is HUGE! Those types of things were ALWAYS met with straight anger. But he rallied so easily!
The next day, when it was time for his pill, he took it much better, still choked it down with juice, and then said very sweetly “If I could choose, I wish the pills weren’t mint. But the juice helps. I can take these.” I kid you not. That never would’ve happened before.
Things were bizarrely seamless for the first few days. I wrote everything down. We checked on Rowan every night at 7:30. Most of the time, he was asleep, and other times, he was awake but so peaceful and content in his bed. Just days before, he had had huge anxiety around bedtime. It was bananas. He was also VERY happy when we discovered and replaced his pills with gummies!
December 15th was a different kind of morning. He woke up with a headache, and he was much more irritable. We knew this would very likely happen, because it takes time to adjust, and NONE of us expected some perfect blank slate in any way shape or form. It had been WAY more seamless than any of us anticipated! But goodness, after those honeymoon days, it was hard to swallow when he threw that tantrum. Boy did I cry. It was a big tantrum like we were used to, though to his credit, it was much shorter. He had a nap after lunch, and had another tantrum in the afternoon, but managed to wind down from that one, mostly on his own, even! He was asleep by 7:30 that night.
Its been over a week now, and I can say that the changes are IMMENSE! Never would I have expected this result! My poor Rowan must’ve been tired and anxious for years. And here we are now, in a WAY better place than just a week or two ago!
There is ebb and flow in his days, but the average would go like this.
-woke up content and happy
-AM – 0 tantrums
-home from school, tired but rational
-afternoon – irritable but calms down and asks for hugs
-dose (2.5 mg) at 6:00pm
-expressed fatigue during bedtime hugs
-asleep by 7:30
The best, simplest way I can explain this change is that he is SO much more capable of handling his emotions with some good sleep in him. He still gets upset at the same things, because he’s still the same guy! Who he is hasn’t changed, which I am THRILLED about!!! I LOVE who he is!!! But now sad, tired, disappointed, hurt, and mad all look different, whereas before, everything went right to anger! He wasn’t rational or reasonable before, but now he can understand and comprehend so much clearer. Its uncanny.
Some notes I’ve made along the way:
“I’m mad at you! Can I have a hug?”
-cried when the other kids yelled
“I dont think I had a very good sleep…”
-self soothed
-tired, but not mad
-fell on the ice, goose egg, cried but didn’t panic
-forgot to check on him at 7:30, but he didn’t get up
-accidentally woke him up, but very pleasant
These are very different details than the ones I wrote the day we gave him his first dose of Melatonin. His whole body has just calmed. He is still exactly my beautiful son, but his life just got SO much easier, and by default, so did mine, and that of the rest of our family. No more eggshells for us. No more tiptoeing. That feeling of teetering on the edge of crisis is so much less, and you can tell Rowan is just SO much more content now.
We have learned so much. Part of me regrets not trying this sooner, but the other part of me knows I put everything I had into helping him with his feelings and his heart. We pray SO MUCH together! We let him age a little. We worked on patience. I did not want to just knock him out for the night. But finally, he verbalized some new things, and we got new direction, and WOW! What an amazing change!!!
And just in time for Christmas holidays! I am SO thankful for this positive change! Celebrate with us, friends! We LOVE Rowan!!!