‘My husband has been secretly giving our 5yo melatonin every night before bed’

“I feel sick and betrayed and furious that he would do this behind my back,” confused and upset mum Sarah writes.

Sitting on the couch in her living room, Sarah* was surprised when her five-year-old daughter Kaya* approached her. 

It was bedtime, but Kaya’s dad, Ben*, was out of the house running an errand, meaning he couldn’t put her to bed like he normally would. 

The 5yo has been having trouble sleeping, so her parents started taking her to a therapist and began enforcing bedtime schedules. 

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Sarah was perplexed when her daughter asked for "special gummies." Source: iStock

“My 5yo wishes her dad was here so she could have her ‘special gummies’”

Shortly before Kaya was supposed to go to sleep, she “randomly announced” to her mum that she “wished Daddy was there at bedtime so she could have one of her ‘special gummies.’”

Confused, Sarah ignored the comment and put her daughter to bed as usual. 

But the next morning, she approached her husband and asked him about the “special gummies.” 

He walked over to a bottle of melatonin gummies and passed it over to Sarah. “It was a bottle of 90 gummies with two left,” she said. 

While the bottle is labelled for children five and older, meaning Kaya can technically take them, Sarah argued she was too little to eat them. 

“Our daughter is only in the 8th percentile for weight and height, so a much smaller five-year-old than most,” she explained. 

While she has been following a relatively strict sleep schedule, Sarah has no idea how frequently Ben has been feeding Kaya the gummies. 

“I feel sick and betrayed and furious that he would do this behind my back,” she said in defeat. 

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The issue of giving their five-year-old melatonin gummies didn’t frighten Redditors so much; it was the fact Ben hid it from Sarah. 

“He definitely tried to hide it deliberately,” Sarah agreed, adding she had a suspicion he was using them to drop his parenting responsibilities sooner. 

“I'm 99 per cent sure he is doing it on nights he doesn't want a long bedtime [because] he wants to start drinking sooner,” she wrote. 

Her answer raised plenty of red flags from other parents, with some concerned about what else he may be hiding in his parenting. 

“This is a HUGE deal for me. If [my husband] went behind my back and gave my daughter melatonin, I’d be furious,’ a woman wrote. “What we give our children is something we need to agree on. Melatonin is a hormone and there are side effects.”

Others argued Ben’s secret nighttime tradition was actually a smart move, especially if Kaya continues showing issues sleeping. 

“To me, the issue isn’t so much the melatonin; it’s more of doing it behind your back instead of talking about it and making the choice together as parents,” one person wrote. 

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“Sleep deprivation is exhausting, and parents are understandably desperate”

Parents have increasingly turned to sleep supplements in recent years, opting to give their children melatonin to help them sleep faster and better.

Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone released in our brains, which is affected by the time and quality of our sleep, which also influences our circadian rhythm (AKA body clock.)

Essentially, if someone takes a melatonin supplement, it is supposed to encourage the hormone secretion, thus making you sleepier. 

Melatonin has proven to be effective for kids with ADHD and ASD, but Australian parents have started flocking to these tasty gummies to aid their kids’ sleep schedules. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in the last decade, there has been a 650 per cent increase in kids taking melatonin before bed.

More than a third of Australian kids suffer from sleep issues, the TGA explained, and despite its explosion in popularity, they have advised parents to rely only on gummies as a final resort. 

“Melatonin should only be used for sleep problems in children and adolescents with specialist advice [e.g. paediatrician, sleep specialist, child psychiatrist],” their statement read, per News GP. 

Additionally, the lack of long-term studies makes it difficult to know how the hormone may affect kids down the line. 

“There are very few long-term research studies on this question and even less on the question of quality and safety of melatonin bought online,” said Sarah Blunden, Professor and Head of Paediatric Sleep Research at CQUniversity Australia. 

“Sleep deprivation is exhausting, and parents are understandably desperate,” she added. “However, I advise caution in buying melatonin online or without the guidance of a qualified health professional.”

Originally published as ‘My husband has been secretly giving our 5yo melatonin every night before bed’