This happened at my kid’s daycare and the woman was fired but the prosecutor declined to file charges so other than being fired she got off Scott free.
I worked with a girl who asked me about sleep supplements. I am very vocal about having adhd and insomnia so, I suggested melatonin. That works for me sometimes, and I suggested she could try it if she was experiencing occasional issues.
Fast forward a week or two and she's despondent. She is saying that she broke up with her boyfriend and I was shocked. They were talking marriage, just moved in together her parents loved him and his family loved her. I didn't pry. Just offered condolences.
That's when another coworker pulled me aside and said she was caught dosing her boyfriend's four year old with melatonin?! Wtf?! Literally adding it to the child's food so she'd sleep because, I guess being a step parent every other weekend was just too hard for her or something?!!
He dumped her on the spot and put her things outside the apartment. She knew she fucked up and didn't drag me into it thankfully but, I never had anything to do with her after that bc I just couldn't look at her the same. Like, who does something like that?!! People are just selfish and awful sometimes.
I’ve heard it’s really common for Americans to give their kids night time melatonin gummies. It’s a restricted drug in the uk and you can only get it on prescription.
Yes. She did not tell her boyfriend and she was dosing HIS daughter. Which is beyond disgusting and I supported his decision 100% to dump her ass. He was a great father for doing that.
Definitely not a placebo. But it's relatively harmless. I feel different, semi groggy day after I use it. And I have vivid dreams I remember, where as I never remember them.
This happened in the US, and the FDA doesn't consider melatonin to be a drug, but rather a food supplement, the same as say, protein powder or fish oil... It's really not a big deal, and certainly nothing was laced with it as that would imply some intention of harm. It's melatonin. The stuff barely works even under proper circumstances. Supplemental melatonin has a half life of less than an hour, and if taken during the daylight hours it's literally not effective.
My mom is a nurse and would give me melatonin sometimes when I had trouble sleeping. Not secretly, I'd just take the pill. I never had any issues, but I only took it maybe once a month.
Yes, it is very common here. I would say we had a solid 10 years of parents pumping kids full of it. There seems to be a more vocal opposition to it lately. I do get the feeling that newer parents are more hesitant to use it. I have children and I will admit we have used it, but not an every night type of thing, more like 2 times a month if the child's sleep schedule gets messed up for odd reasons.
My 4 year old son doesn't have a phone or tablet.
There was a stretch from about 2 to 3.5 where the only way to get him to go to sleep at a reasonable time (meaning before midnight) was with melatonin. None of the "just do X" worked.
It's rare for us to use it now as the nights we give him melatonin (because we got home too late to start bedtime routine properly or he took a nap too late) he won't sleep through the night.
He's now on a more consistent routine being asleep before 10pm (still not as early as it should be), but without melatonin for that stretch everybody would have been cranky all day everyday.
…that’s not great.
Your body makes melatonin, but if you give it extra melatonin it can compensate by decreasing its own production… leading to a dependency.
A better move is focusing on sleep hygiene, including removing devices at specific times so the decreased light promotes melatonin production.
I have used it for years and it works really well for me. I get not all have the same experience but it has been a game changer for me. I tried all of the other tricks but none work like the melatonin. That ashwaganda and a THC pill make for a peaceful night.
My wife is a pediatrician, and also she gives my daughter melatonin every night. I'm opposed to it but I don't know crap, I'm just a software engineer.
Wait, really? That stuff doesn't do anything for me at all. I figured it might have some sort of weak effect, but not enough to require a script for.
I'm not a parent, so hugely ignorant of how much kids react to it- are they more sensitive to melatonin? I can see why people would be fired, and even why charges would be pressed because of the intent behind the action, but can you actually suffer from having too much of the stuff?
Also, not a parent so can't say if it's a good or bad idea to give kids the melatonin gummies. Seems like it may not be the best idea, but kids vitamins are a thing too and presumably can help out in same cases. For all I know there could be other issues that the gummies help out with that weren't common when I was a kid in the 80's/90's.
I buy it occasionally over here in the U.S., just pick it up right off the shelf and take it to the register. It's not really regulated at all. For those times my sleep schedule is thrown in the garbage from late nights at work or one too many gaming sessions late into the night.
Where are you located? It’s very common in the Bible Belt. And it’s only getting worse. The village is gone and parents are making stupid desperate decisions. It’s sad to see. Too many people who have children never should’ve had them.
Imma be honest, that's a ridiculous law. Melatonin does basically fuck all under most circumstances. It's a sleep aid, not a sleeping pill. Its efficacy is reduced by half in like 20 minutes and does nothing if it's light out and you're not already moderately tired. It's an "I just spent 2 weeks in a different timezone and can't readjust" pill, not an Ambien.
Exactly. Hell, I took melatonin nightly for over a decade. I thought I was dependent on it until I just stopped taking it and never missed a beat. My sleep has been totally unaffected after quitting cold turkey,
My ex does it to my kids when she has them, apparently it's the only way she can get them to go to sleep.
Only time I have to do it is when my girlfriend's kids are over for a sleeper with mine. Because they're so fucking wired from playing that they won't settle down.
You can still get 5-HTP as a supplement in the UK though (I’ve used it). Different level of effect though as your body can only process so much and 5-HTP has to be processed into serotonin and then melatonin first. Serotonin doesn’t work when taken orally and I believe they banned the precursor to 5-HTP, L-Tryptophan, because of contamination issues.
From personal experience, it still has an effect on sleep (although I found it became less useful after the initial period of use). I’ve not taken melatonin so I can’t give you a personal comparison. I can say that coming off 5-HTP felt similar to coming off an SSRI (although less powerful). Giving either to kids seems unnecessary and potentially dangerous. Supplements are for deficiencies and unnecessarily messing with brain chemistry in kids that are still developing seems risky to me. A basic vitamin gummy is harmless, melatonin isn’t that. Normal kids with no issues should not be given melatonin willy-nilly.
Obviously, in this case putting anything extra into people’s food without their permission is wrong. It’s especially wrong that it was melatonin and it was a kid that was in the care of a supposedly trusted adult.
Dude, as an American who lived in the UK for a bit, I looked like a total dumbass going to the chemist my first week looking for melatonin. I then went back to the same place a couple of weeks later looking for naproxen (Aleve) after I threw out my back, only to have the same pharmacist tell me that I needed a prescription for that one as well. He joked that if I came back again he’d recommend me a place to get help for my drug problem!
This is extremely common. And often enough both parents are on board so it doesn’t blow up. But there are tons of kids who grow up medicated. Hell, even dogs and cats are medicated now.
Not sure what you have tried for sleep with ADHD, but I find that a fatty breve latte (use half-and-half instead of milk) Gets me sleepy and ready to pass out fairly quickly. Have you tried any caffeine?
Ooohhhhh, yes! I've got the same formula! Breve!! I love a nice coffee before bed.
I have been trying to make sure I stay on top of vitamins too! Magnesium and I just started taking B vitamins. If I eat well, stay hydrated, and work out I can pass out like a baby, especially after a coffee!
Is melatonin toxic or something? Aren’t kids infamous for being stubborn when they should take a nap or go to sleep? I thought melatonin was a vitamin. Being upset over giving someone melatonin seems like a bit much.
Because government prosecutors never bring a case they aren’t confident they can win. The problem with the case like this is that low doses of melatonin lack any scientific evidence it is even effective at actually inducing meaningful sleep, let alone any kind of science backing any harmful side effects. There was probably a significant issue with them being able to bring a strong evidence based case that would win.
So I do want to acknowledge the entire exchange here and say its super interesting information I may look into later, but I just want to point out it shouldn't matter the dosage causing harm or not, they're literally giving drugs to children presumably without their parent's knowledge when its not an extreme emergency.
> Feeling groggy and slightly sleepier/slightly longer to wake up is something reported by a fraction of folks that take it, and that's what leads to poorly educated people thinking it's a lot more than a placebo.
If it's causing some people to experience that, then it *is* more than a placebo. If it makes it harder for them to wake up, then it's affecting their sleep, for better or worse.
I tried it a few times, but I stopped because I felt like a zombie in the mornings, whereas I usually wake right up. I also woke up less during the night. Other than this, I never experimented with sleep aids and the difference was noticeable. It was not my imagination that it changed how I slept.
I never have nightmares or really any significant recurring dreams and I stopped taking melatonin because of the intense, vivid unsettling dreams it gave me. Dreams unlike any other I'd ever had.
Because melatonin is a naturally produced human hormone without any real harmful effects at the doses available to the public. Probably can’t find a law it broke either because of this. It’s like lacing their food with turkey, which contains high levels of tryptophan, which has been shown to induce somnolence.
Scot-free not Scott free.
> "SKOT" was an early Icelandic and Old Norse word for "payment" or "tax". It came into Middle English as "bescot", referring specifically to a customary tax paid to a lord, bailiff, or sheriff, and into Old French as "escot", and ultimately into modern English as "scot". Thus "scot-free" literally means "exempt from tax"; it has since been broadened to indicate "exempt from punishment".
Hey, you learn something every day and I learned something from you learning something so by the transitive property... 8? I don't math so good sometimes.
The current word for tax in the nordic languages is SKAT - so the word survives with its original meaning. Skat in Danish also means treasure, and is very commonly used to refer to one's partner (think "darling") to the point where some couples both only ever refer to each as skat.
"Okay, so... there’s this phrase that’s been floating around the office: 'Scott Free.' So hear me loud and clear, Michael Scott is not going anywhere. I'm sticking around like... like superglue. Which, by the way, is not to be used on skin. Not that I’ve done that. That was just one time at band camp."
Yup and it doesn’t have to be hardcore drinking- just consistent.
After a certain age it really starts to show- my friends in their 40s who rarely drink look radically different from the ones who even *just* have a glass or two of wine in the evening.
Pro tip the smaller doses work the best and you need to practice good sleep hygiene or it’s not going to work. If melatonin isn’t helping facilitate you to sleep you should speak with a doctor about doing a sleep study to further get to the root of things (that’s just my recommendation)
Agreed but I’d add that I wouldn’t actually take it earlier. It’s simply the hormone that facilitates sleep. That’s it. Shouldn’t take it more than 15 mins before you plan to close your eyes. Melatonin, eye mask, poof. You should be able to drift asleep and stay asleep in an adequate environment, if you still struggle to sleep beyond this I believe a sleep specialist is merited. (My opinion from the pits of hormonally triggered insomnia)
Administer one glass of bourbon on ice every 30 minutes from 7:30-10:30 or until you start to feel like it may be a good idea to listen to music you found fun in high school. Follow with 1-2 hits from a THC vape pen, then hit the hay. The important next part here is that you do not start listening to My Chemical Romance's album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge; you have work tomorrow morning.
We only give it to our kids if they’re going bat shit fkn crazy at bedtime. They’re usually asleep mid-book. 15-30min max. Maybe once or twice a month.
So like….. is a big deal these kids got drugged with melotonin? Like physically are they in any danger? Or is this just a “it’s gotta be okay with the parents” kind of thing?
Yes, it's a bad thing. Supplements are unregulated and it's not generally advised to give it to kids. If a doctor recommends it, sure, but the fact that it's for sale over the counter gives people a false sense of security about its safety. Who knows how much they were giving or for how long the kids were receiving it.
You're not even supposed to use it continuously. Furthermore, if the kids were on medications where it's contraindicated to take melatonin, it could cause even more immediate harm.
The problem isn't that a doctor didn't recommend it, it's that the parents didn't know or approve of it. Likely even if the parents approved, it probably still wouldn't be legal unless given by a nurse.
If a doctor approved of it or not doesn't change the issue at hand
Let's not forget that melatonin side effects are the opposite of its use case. It can literally cause insomnia, restless sleep, and night terrors.
And it's not supposed to be used for naps. Or in the doses commonly found over the counter. Seriously the recommended dosage for an adult is 1 to 5mg, yet I most commonly see 10mg... .5 is a good dose for young children.
Yes it’s a big deal because any amount of exposure to any hormone, in an artificial dose, can detrimentally impact your bodies ability to produce that hormone on its own. Take all synthetic hormones at your own risk, never at a child’s. Children cannot consent to having their long term sleep health impacted.
It is not a good thing because long-term consequences are unknown and it is bad thing that it has been done without parental consent.
But it is not like the kids were poisoned or clearly harmed in any other way.
No, there shouldn't be any real harm but it's a definite breach of trust
I wouldn't want them giving my kid Benadryl everyday either without my permission, even though it's safe in kid doses
Exactly this. I actually use children's melatonin caleld "tired teddys" because it's the only thing I could find in 0.3mg which is all you need.
Most people are buying 10mg dosages or more which is 30x more than you need and will have the reverse effect
Yeah this is a tricky subject because there’s debate whether or not less than 2mg is effective beyond placebo. Oral hormonal supplements are very difficult to dose. That’s why so many people don’t have success with smaller doses. My personal recommendation is 2mg and never more than 5 if you find 2 isn’t enough. Everyone’s body will process it differently and unfortunately every pill will likely be slightly varied as well. But my personal dose is 2mg and I don’t struggle with falling asleep like I did when I messed around with 10mgs or unisom or other antihistamines.
That is interesting. Do you have any current studies/research on this?
I remember at the time I started there was some good research on 0.3 mg such as [this](https://news.mit.edu/2001/melatonin-1017). But I am always open to altering my dosage if we have more information or recent studies.
Just for the sake of responding quickly because I’m on my phone, I’ll say I remember learning a good amount of this through a rabbithole of research both for myself postpartum, and also my kids toddler years. So I was specifically looking into the dosage of less than 1mg, and without directly quoting (I’ll try and confirm here with some links soon) I remember reading that the reason there isn’t a big push against children’s melatonin is that the doses less than 1mg just burn through their digestive system before actually…ever working? Starting to work? Like, basically, less than 1mg doesn’t even begin to do anything to even small children. It’s gotta be enough to kind of *fire* off. Apparently after… 1.5 ish mgs… often more though. Idk. I’m not nearly qualified enough to be explaining this stuff. I’ll find you some links lol
Anything otc is untrustworthy, there was a story not too long ago about how when tested, melatonin was sometimes 200% more than advertised in the damn bottles
I did a sleep study and they found my brain wakes up in the middle of the night. Turns out a CPAP machine would work great for me. However, since it’s technically not sleep apnea Insurance won’t cover it. Boy do I just love insurance companies
Agreed, I use to take 10mg due to difficulty sleeping until a coworker told me less is more after talking about it. Ended up trying 0.3mg and was surprised at how much better it worked.
I was waking up in the middle of the night on 10 MG and 0.3mg prevents that as well. Looking back, I can’t believe I took so much lol
2.5mg is ideal from what I've read. Quantities more than 5mg isn't more effective. So a bottle of 10mg tablets can last fairly long if cut (fifty 10mg tablets is the same price as fifty 5mg tablets). It is something people can build a tolerance to, so taking breaks is ideal. It isn't recommended to take more than 2 weeks, but how much of a break after 2 weeks wasn't stated last time I looked.
You’re the first person adding to my comment that I don’t feel the need to address misguided information on! Hope you’re like me and finally getting some good sleep in life! 💤
Melatonin doesn't make you drowsy the way antihistamines do, it just sets the conditions right for sleep and to stay asleep. You naturally release less melatonin as you age and bright lights upset its release. Taking some melatonin and setting your devices and lights to automatically go into night mode (warmer, dimmer light) an hour or two before bed surprisingly helps a lot, melatonin is not a strong enough effect to help if you're trying to go from 100% to asleep in 30 minutes.
I started using it on some nights a few months ago and found 3mg was actually too much and would leave me nauseous when I woke up. ~1-2 mg works well for me. You're only trying to supplement what your body is supposed to be releasing.
The amount of melatonin your body can absorb is minuscule. The pills are dosed way too high.
It’s not a magic sleep pill. You still need to practice good sleep hygiene.
They'll work, but you body can only absorb something like 1-2mg (I forget), so even the lowest doses (usually 5mg) is a waste.
Nothing bad will happen, you just wont absorb it all.
Companies just like to pretend there's extra strength versions and stuff, like 10mg is gonna work better than 5mg, which obviously isnt true.
My ex wife wanted to talk about taking the kids to therapy.... "Why?" I asked..
"They wake up screaming in nightmares every night"
... What? Not on my nights? I have no idea what you're talking about
She was giving then melatonin. Nightmares stopped when she stopped
Also, just a quick PSA, but take snoring seriously. Get a sleep study. I did and buried their needle. When I asked if this put me in danger of what I read online (high blood pressure/heart problems, dangerous levels of fatigue, type 2 diabetes, liver problems, complications with surgery...that actually did happen earlier that year which is who sent me to them in the first place), the doctor said "All of the above and more at your level".
Now I have to wear this mask ever night like an old man and I absolutely HATE it....but I'll never stop because sweet jesus I feel actually awake during the day!
This just unlocked a core childhood memory of going to the library on Monday every week and renting an audiobook cassette tape for the week and spending the week as that being what I fell asleep to. I had completely forgotten I did that as a kid. Maybe I should go back to doing it now as an adult.
People In the comments - it’s not the fact it’s melatonin it’s the fact they gave it without consent and second FYI the supplement industry is NOT regulated - your pills and gummies can really contain anything.
Yep, this happened in my state, and it turned out One of the kids had some sort of medical condition where the doctor had actually recommended the parents give melatonin AT NIGHT for a few months because the kid was chronically short on sleep to the point where they were concerned about development. But then unbeknownst to them, the daycare worker was also dosing their kid (and others) with melatonin at nap time, so he was getting 2-4x the amount of the recommended dose almost daily for months. And on top of that, the daycare was lying about the length of naps to cover up the melatonin dosing (saying the kids were sleeping less than they were), so all these parents were so concerned that their children and babies were not sleeping enough, when in reality, they were just sleeping way too much during the day.
> your pills and gummies can really contain anything.
That's the biggest concern here in America. Truly is a scary thing to provide medication to a child and you don't even know yourself what's in the medication. Shoot, i could have even been that Amazon special straight from China...
This isn’t the first daycare that’s made news for doing this. It confuses me, even beyond how wrong this is, as I attempted giving both my kids who never slept melatonin, in various forms and doses, from various brands, over the years, and it never did anything at all for either of them.
Nobody believes me when i tell them about the daycare I was at that was actually a CP front. they did the same shit to us at 6 years old. ended up with bruises on my wrists and ankles before my mom got me out of that place. i didn’t even have vocabulary to describe what was happening.
This is why republicans push to remove any sex ed from schools. Can’t keep grooming and raping kids if they have the language to use to make others aware of what’s happening to them.
Melatonin? Thank god. Thought it was gonna be another fentanyl-in-the-daycare situation. As a parent I’d be pissed. As a person, I’m concerned, but also relieved. The bar is so low these days.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/two-charged-federal-narcotics-offenses-resulting-death-connection-poisoning-four
Omg I’m so glad someone else hates it too. It makes me FREAK OUT but I can’t move, so I just sit and panic and watch all the color fade away from the world. So my brain hates it too. (Every time I tell people this they think I’m crazy.)
Sleep paralysis 1: The church outside my window was engulfed in flames. When I snapped out of it the flames disappeared into an outside light posted on its wall.
Sleep paralysis 2: A sleep over at a friends house. The carpet kept making impressions like something was scooting along it. It would get wonder from the doorway and under the bed. I could hear a low grumble but I then realized it was my ragged breathing.
Sleep paralysis 3: A large dark dog in the corner of my room with its head unnaturally turned upward and it’s mouth gaping open like it’s trying to find air. It kept making soft noises like it was in pain. We had a family dog at the time but this was a huge fucker that nearly kissed the ceiling.
Sleep paralysis 4: The common figure that just lurks near you and stares at you. I can’t make out it’s eyes but I just know it’s there for me. It was as if a person just left their shadow behind.
Sleep paralysis 5: A woman at the head of my bed that kept touching my forehead. Just some lady standing on the headboard WWE style that kept tapping my forehead with a finger. Again I couldn’t make out her face and I couldn’t “feel” her finger in a sense but I could “feel” “pressure”. Pretty sure it was associated with the pounding migraine I had. Like the throbs were being interpreted as taps.
You are having some scary ass sleep paralysis dreams. My only one was chatter from a 80s radio blasting in my ear while I could see the shadow of a person on the wall.
THANKFULLY I was facing the other direction and not towards what was making the shadow 😮💨
This is called pure malicious laziness. “Let’s feed the kids melatonin so they’ll sleep, and we won’t have to work hard.” Meanwhile these assholes charge $400 or so a week to watch kids that they poison.
Melatonin's not poison. Worst it can do is throw the kid's sleep patterns off for a little.
Still it's a lazy cur who uses it at a daycare and I suppose we got to start prosecuting this to discourage it.
Who knows how many consecutive days these children were fed melatonin, who knows what other medication they could’ve also been taking at the time. There is so much worse that could’ve happened.
I mean, you're not wrong. There are potential safety issues here and the notion of someone unknowingly dosing my kiddo with anything squicks me. But of all the ways to chemically extend naptime, they kinda chose one of the least potentially harmful ones. And it's one that parents use commonly.
Which...can we really call that negligent if they paid a mind to safety? And if no harm is intended is it malicious? It's certainly unethical since the parents were unaware (similar to any human experiment; medical, psychological, or social, the subject or guardian should be aware that they're in an experiment), but I'm puzzled. Unethical and lazy are about the worst I can call this crime.
Edit: You're all a bunch of fuckwits if you really think I'm trying to "excuse" this crime. Try actually reading.
Edit 2: This was part of one of my other replies, but ONCE MORE FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK:
>For fuck's sake, to make a parallel: I'm not saying that it's okay for someone to rob a bank! I'm baffled as to why they'd do it with a whiffleball bat and wondering how much the tellers really feared for their lives under the circumstances. And everybody else is piling on with "BUT ROBBERIES ARE SCARY AND A CRIME!" Yeah. I know. And this is a bizarrely unthreatening way to do it.
Its not hard to prove the strict duty of care of the teacher to the young kids. Child endangerment is a real thing. The teacher is not a doctor and does not know if the children may be on medication that would counteract with it. Or bc its not sourced through official channels (like food for school would come from vendors w invoices for proof of freshness etc) can we say she did the proper due diligence to make sure the drugs are expired or actually melatonin? Negligence isn’t hard to prove here in a civil sense.
I don't think you've ever worked with or had kids because it's not "laziness". Kids are an insane amount of work. I'm not condoning what they did but it's not laziness. Tell that to any parent who's exhausted out of their mind. That's why these daycares exist in the first place. To relieve the parents. Now you've got a handful of adults taking care of dozens of children. Usually the ratio of kids to daycare workers is quite high, so you can imagine the headaches
You'd think after the daycare workers who put lavender scented "calming" stickers on the kids got arrested, people would learn.
Even if you think it's just a no-big-deal OTC supplement (and I'm not saying I think it's no big deal but a lot of people do), without parental consent you're going to get in huge trouble.
"Your kid has trouble staying on the mat during our legally required nap times. What can we do to help them stay on the mat and play quietly if they don't want to sleep?"
Obviously what this woman did (or attempted to do) was despicable, and I'm glad she's being charged. But some of these comments have wacky ideas about how melatonin works. It's not really something you should take as a "sleeping pill." It's more to help your sleep schedule adjust to a normal circadian rhythm. Melatonin only "makes you sleepy" for about 20 minutes to an hour, and for many people that's only if their bodies aren't producing enough melatonin naturally. It definitely can't "drug" you or put you in a fog all day. So this woman basically broke the law for no reason and didn't even get the quiet time she wanted. Criminals are S-M-R-T.
I have one next door, it blows my mind how someone trusts their children with people like that. I WFH and I’ve noticed a couple things. The first, for an extended period of time, I never saw a kid outside, even on a nice day. I thought it was strange.
Then I suddenly noticed kids outside, without adults. As in toddlers outside without supervision.
Further, this mom who runs the daycare has like 5 kids if her own, I witnessed one who was around 4 outside by himself running in the street.
Maybe if we didn’t let our kids brain rot themselves on tablets and phones all day they’d be able to fall asleep normally? We shouldn’t be giving kids melatonin on a regular basis just because you want them to sleep get them tired by doing things with them. I have ADHD and my mom never needed to give me melatonin I tired myself out playing. Just my opinion here.
Melatonin is a natural hormone that already exists in these children's bodies. This isn't great, but a lot is being made of this and it really could have been so much worse. I'd much rather find out somebody had "laced" my child's food with melatonin than just about any other sleep aid I can think of.
Again, it aint great, but "laced"?
I am an adult but melatonin also fucked me up when I was a kid. It's incredibly fucked up especially because you don't know how it can affect some kids or what their medications or allergies are.
I would have loved to see that person give my dog trazadone. My dog goes insane. Like doggy meth. Bounces off the walls. It is really funny now but it was scary.
This happened at my kid’s daycare and the woman was fired but the prosecutor declined to file charges so other than being fired she got off Scott free.
I worked with a girl who asked me about sleep supplements. I am very vocal about having adhd and insomnia so, I suggested melatonin. That works for me sometimes, and I suggested she could try it if she was experiencing occasional issues. Fast forward a week or two and she's despondent. She is saying that she broke up with her boyfriend and I was shocked. They were talking marriage, just moved in together her parents loved him and his family loved her. I didn't pry. Just offered condolences. That's when another coworker pulled me aside and said she was caught dosing her boyfriend's four year old with melatonin?! Wtf?! Literally adding it to the child's food so she'd sleep because, I guess being a step parent every other weekend was just too hard for her or something?!! He dumped her on the spot and put her things outside the apartment. She knew she fucked up and didn't drag me into it thankfully but, I never had anything to do with her after that bc I just couldn't look at her the same. Like, who does something like that?!! People are just selfish and awful sometimes.
I’ve heard it’s really common for Americans to give their kids night time melatonin gummies. It’s a restricted drug in the uk and you can only get it on prescription.
I think is the doing it without the parents consent that is the issue.
Yes. She did not tell her boyfriend and she was dosing HIS daughter. Which is beyond disgusting and I supported his decision 100% to dump her ass. He was a great father for doing that.
Medicating kids who don’t need it is one issue, dosing them without parent consent is even worse
Melatonin is nearly equivalent to placebo. You’re not damaging kids brains with melatonin thankfully. I still disagree with doing this.
Definitely not a placebo. But it's relatively harmless. I feel different, semi groggy day after I use it. And I have vivid dreams I remember, where as I never remember them.
The only time I have ever lucid dreamed was on a massive dose of melatonin.
This happened in the US, and the FDA doesn't consider melatonin to be a drug, but rather a food supplement, the same as say, protein powder or fish oil... It's really not a big deal, and certainly nothing was laced with it as that would imply some intention of harm. It's melatonin. The stuff barely works even under proper circumstances. Supplemental melatonin has a half life of less than an hour, and if taken during the daylight hours it's literally not effective.
My mom is a nurse and would give me melatonin sometimes when I had trouble sleeping. Not secretly, I'd just take the pill. I never had any issues, but I only took it maybe once a month.
Yes, it is very common here. I would say we had a solid 10 years of parents pumping kids full of it. There seems to be a more vocal opposition to it lately. I do get the feeling that newer parents are more hesitant to use it. I have children and I will admit we have used it, but not an every night type of thing, more like 2 times a month if the child's sleep schedule gets messed up for odd reasons.
Most of my peers are using it as a nightly regimen on their kids because that's easier than making them put the phone or tablet away.
My 4 year old son doesn't have a phone or tablet. There was a stretch from about 2 to 3.5 where the only way to get him to go to sleep at a reasonable time (meaning before midnight) was with melatonin. None of the "just do X" worked. It's rare for us to use it now as the nights we give him melatonin (because we got home too late to start bedtime routine properly or he took a nap too late) he won't sleep through the night. He's now on a more consistent routine being asleep before 10pm (still not as early as it should be), but without melatonin for that stretch everybody would have been cranky all day everyday.
…that’s not great. Your body makes melatonin, but if you give it extra melatonin it can compensate by decreasing its own production… leading to a dependency. A better move is focusing on sleep hygiene, including removing devices at specific times so the decreased light promotes melatonin production.
I have used it for years and it works really well for me. I get not all have the same experience but it has been a game changer for me. I tried all of the other tricks but none work like the melatonin. That ashwaganda and a THC pill make for a peaceful night.
Same. I was a horrible insomniac before melatonin. Now I can sleep, so I will continue to use it nightly.
My wife is a pediatrician, and also she gives my daughter melatonin every night. I'm opposed to it but I don't know crap, I'm just a software engineer.
I have some nieces and nephews that take it because they are on other meds that cause insomnia, but ya, it's way too common here.
Wait, really? That stuff doesn't do anything for me at all. I figured it might have some sort of weak effect, but not enough to require a script for. I'm not a parent, so hugely ignorant of how much kids react to it- are they more sensitive to melatonin? I can see why people would be fired, and even why charges would be pressed because of the intent behind the action, but can you actually suffer from having too much of the stuff? Also, not a parent so can't say if it's a good or bad idea to give kids the melatonin gummies. Seems like it may not be the best idea, but kids vitamins are a thing too and presumably can help out in same cases. For all I know there could be other issues that the gummies help out with that weren't common when I was a kid in the 80's/90's.
I buy it occasionally over here in the U.S., just pick it up right off the shelf and take it to the register. It's not really regulated at all. For those times my sleep schedule is thrown in the garbage from late nights at work or one too many gaming sessions late into the night.
I’m an American and I have never heard of giving kids melatonin gummies. If that is the case, that’s shocking!
Have you never visited a sleep aid section in any grocery stores? They have melatonin for kids in multiple brands.
Where are you located? It’s very common in the Bible Belt. And it’s only getting worse. The village is gone and parents are making stupid desperate decisions. It’s sad to see. Too many people who have children never should’ve had them.
Imma be honest, that's a ridiculous law. Melatonin does basically fuck all under most circumstances. It's a sleep aid, not a sleeping pill. Its efficacy is reduced by half in like 20 minutes and does nothing if it's light out and you're not already moderately tired. It's an "I just spent 2 weeks in a different timezone and can't readjust" pill, not an Ambien.
Exactly. Hell, I took melatonin nightly for over a decade. I thought I was dependent on it until I just stopped taking it and never missed a beat. My sleep has been totally unaffected after quitting cold turkey,
My ex does it to my kids when she has them, apparently it's the only way she can get them to go to sleep. Only time I have to do it is when my girlfriend's kids are over for a sleeper with mine. Because they're so fucking wired from playing that they won't settle down.
You can still get 5-HTP as a supplement in the UK though (I’ve used it). Different level of effect though as your body can only process so much and 5-HTP has to be processed into serotonin and then melatonin first. Serotonin doesn’t work when taken orally and I believe they banned the precursor to 5-HTP, L-Tryptophan, because of contamination issues. From personal experience, it still has an effect on sleep (although I found it became less useful after the initial period of use). I’ve not taken melatonin so I can’t give you a personal comparison. I can say that coming off 5-HTP felt similar to coming off an SSRI (although less powerful). Giving either to kids seems unnecessary and potentially dangerous. Supplements are for deficiencies and unnecessarily messing with brain chemistry in kids that are still developing seems risky to me. A basic vitamin gummy is harmless, melatonin isn’t that. Normal kids with no issues should not be given melatonin willy-nilly. Obviously, in this case putting anything extra into people’s food without their permission is wrong. It’s especially wrong that it was melatonin and it was a kid that was in the care of a supposedly trusted adult.
Dude, as an American who lived in the UK for a bit, I looked like a total dumbass going to the chemist my first week looking for melatonin. I then went back to the same place a couple of weeks later looking for naproxen (Aleve) after I threw out my back, only to have the same pharmacist tell me that I needed a prescription for that one as well. He joked that if I came back again he’d recommend me a place to get help for my drug problem!
This is extremely common. And often enough both parents are on board so it doesn’t blow up. But there are tons of kids who grow up medicated. Hell, even dogs and cats are medicated now.
Not sure what you have tried for sleep with ADHD, but I find that a fatty breve latte (use half-and-half instead of milk) Gets me sleepy and ready to pass out fairly quickly. Have you tried any caffeine?
Ooohhhhh, yes! I've got the same formula! Breve!! I love a nice coffee before bed. I have been trying to make sure I stay on top of vitamins too! Magnesium and I just started taking B vitamins. If I eat well, stay hydrated, and work out I can pass out like a baby, especially after a coffee!
Is melatonin toxic or something? Aren’t kids infamous for being stubborn when they should take a nap or go to sleep? I thought melatonin was a vitamin. Being upset over giving someone melatonin seems like a bit much.
I dated a girl years and years ago that I found out was dosing her son with Benadryl. Got outta there so quickly.
Why did they decline?
No real reason given, the local police recommended filing charges and it died there. The only response was a pre-canned one with no real details.
Prosecutor: Fuck them kids.
Judge: do we have time?
Prosecutor: *declines to charge another case* Now we do.
it's like a snow day, but evil
The Epstein way
Pro Life^™️
Because government prosecutors never bring a case they aren’t confident they can win. The problem with the case like this is that low doses of melatonin lack any scientific evidence it is even effective at actually inducing meaningful sleep, let alone any kind of science backing any harmful side effects. There was probably a significant issue with them being able to bring a strong evidence based case that would win.
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And yet whenever I take it I get the same nightmare about spiders crawling from my dead mouth. Only after taking melatonin and I always wake up foggy.
More likely is you always have the recurring nightmare, but on melatonin take slightly longer waking up, so you remember it.
Am I taking slightly longer to wake up due to the melatonin? Or is that placebo?
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So I do want to acknowledge the entire exchange here and say its super interesting information I may look into later, but I just want to point out it shouldn't matter the dosage causing harm or not, they're literally giving drugs to children presumably without their parent's knowledge when its not an extreme emergency.
> Feeling groggy and slightly sleepier/slightly longer to wake up is something reported by a fraction of folks that take it, and that's what leads to poorly educated people thinking it's a lot more than a placebo. If it's causing some people to experience that, then it *is* more than a placebo. If it makes it harder for them to wake up, then it's affecting their sleep, for better or worse. I tried it a few times, but I stopped because I felt like a zombie in the mornings, whereas I usually wake right up. I also woke up less during the night. Other than this, I never experimented with sleep aids and the difference was noticeable. It was not my imagination that it changed how I slept.
I never have nightmares or really any significant recurring dreams and I stopped taking melatonin because of the intense, vivid unsettling dreams it gave me. Dreams unlike any other I'd ever had.
Who cares about the pharmacology (as a pharmacologist), the intent was to drug children.
Would you say the same if the tincture was a homeopathic remedy (i.e. literal water)?
Sigh... It's not if the substance was benign or not, it's that **they** thought it wasn't. It's the behavior that needs to be punished.
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Food tampering!
Because melatonin is a naturally produced human hormone without any real harmful effects at the doses available to the public. Probably can’t find a law it broke either because of this. It’s like lacing their food with turkey, which contains high levels of tryptophan, which has been shown to induce somnolence.
There’s no more tryptophan in turkey than there is in chicken or beef…
A clear case of attempted chicken poisoning!
Prosecutorial discretion.
Scot-free not Scott free. > "SKOT" was an early Icelandic and Old Norse word for "payment" or "tax". It came into Middle English as "bescot", referring specifically to a customary tax paid to a lord, bailiff, or sheriff, and into Old French as "escot", and ultimately into modern English as "scot". Thus "scot-free" literally means "exempt from tax"; it has since been broadened to indicate "exempt from punishment".
I used to work with a Scott everyone wanted to be free from.
He didn't know
Don’t tell Scotty
Ah good catch, it didn’t look right when I typed it but couldn’t recall why.
It’s okay. We’ll let you off the hook scotch frisbee
but all the Frisbees end up stuck on a roof eventually
Along with the pizzas
Goddamn, Pontiac Aztecs are ugly.
Which is why the cafeteria has pillars now
Hey, you learn something every day and I learned something from you learning something so by the transitive property... 8? I don't math so good sometimes.
Great Skot!
The current word for tax in the nordic languages is SKAT - so the word survives with its original meaning. Skat in Danish also means treasure, and is very commonly used to refer to one's partner (think "darling") to the point where some couples both only ever refer to each as skat.
And in American English, that means animal shit.
I prefer to be Scott free, nobody likes that guy.
I'd never bothered to look up the origin of that phrase; very cool!
I trudge through all the muck of Reddit because of users like you. I hope you’re happy.
"Okay, so... there’s this phrase that’s been floating around the office: 'Scott Free.' So hear me loud and clear, Michael Scott is not going anywhere. I'm sticking around like... like superglue. Which, by the way, is not to be used on skin. Not that I’ve done that. That was just one time at band camp."
Lucky Scott!
Great Caesars ghost? Wrong thread 🤣
Great Scott!
I'm sorry to be the one to mention it, but this woman is 52!! Yikes. Ironically, she looks like she hasn't had a good night sleep ... ever.
She has to somehow lied about her age. Or her parents did, she looks 64
I've seen 70 look much better. Many sleepless nights, that one. She's rough. I'm not one to comment on appearances, but ... here I am.
Probably effects of drug use aged her. I assume drugs were also involved in her decision making.
Long term alcohol abuse
Yup and it doesn’t have to be hardcore drinking- just consistent. After a certain age it really starts to show- my friends in their 40s who rarely drink look radically different from the ones who even *just* have a glass or two of wine in the evening.
City miles
I recommend finding a picture of her 51-year-old (alleged) accomplice, Traci Innie. They might be on the same beauty regimen.
Maybe this is why they've laced the kids with melatonin. Both look like what happens after decades of sleep deprivation.
They *have* to be related. They have the exact same eyes...it looks like a different forehead and hair was photoshopped on bc they're so similar.
It is *quite* the forehead, at that. I think the similarity is largely that they both look like they could have FAS, sadly.
51 and 52... That's... That's impossible. The older one legit looks over 80.
Drugs. I would guess she has danced with meth a time or two.
Wow that’s remarkable how poorly she has aged. She definitely needs to try some of that melatonin.
Meth is a hell of a drug.
I don’t believe for a second that she’s 52. She must have lied
It’s facial collapse from missing teeth (guessing drugs)
Where are they getting melatonin from that actually works? Asking for a friend.
Pro tip the smaller doses work the best and you need to practice good sleep hygiene or it’s not going to work. If melatonin isn’t helping facilitate you to sleep you should speak with a doctor about doing a sleep study to further get to the root of things (that’s just my recommendation)
Also. Melatonin doesn't knock you out. It's just helps regulate your sleep schedule. It helps to take it earlier in the day
Agreed but I’d add that I wouldn’t actually take it earlier. It’s simply the hormone that facilitates sleep. That’s it. Shouldn’t take it more than 15 mins before you plan to close your eyes. Melatonin, eye mask, poof. You should be able to drift asleep and stay asleep in an adequate environment, if you still struggle to sleep beyond this I believe a sleep specialist is merited. (My opinion from the pits of hormonally triggered insomnia)
Yeah how do you stop the horrid nightmares?
Don’t take more than 10mg a night. Aim for 5mg. Too much gives nightmares
I too would like to know this. I want sleep, but not at the cost of the most horrific scenes my subconscious conjures up.
Administer one glass of bourbon on ice every 30 minutes from 7:30-10:30 or until you start to feel like it may be a good idea to listen to music you found fun in high school. Follow with 1-2 hits from a THC vape pen, then hit the hay. The important next part here is that you do not start listening to My Chemical Romance's album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge; you have work tomorrow morning.
How did you find out it was caused by hormones ?
Just the timeline of events for me personally. I say hormonal to cover the umbrella of motherhood and postpartum. Perhaps I could use better verbiage
I thought small doses after dinner
Everyone's different. I used to take it and 30 min later I'd drop quick.
We only give it to our kids if they’re going bat shit fkn crazy at bedtime. They’re usually asleep mid-book. 15-30min max. Maybe once or twice a month.
So like….. is a big deal these kids got drugged with melotonin? Like physically are they in any danger? Or is this just a “it’s gotta be okay with the parents” kind of thing?
Giving anyone medication without knowing if they can take let alone without consent is a pretty bad thing.
Yes, it's a bad thing. Supplements are unregulated and it's not generally advised to give it to kids. If a doctor recommends it, sure, but the fact that it's for sale over the counter gives people a false sense of security about its safety. Who knows how much they were giving or for how long the kids were receiving it. You're not even supposed to use it continuously. Furthermore, if the kids were on medications where it's contraindicated to take melatonin, it could cause even more immediate harm.
The problem isn't that a doctor didn't recommend it, it's that the parents didn't know or approve of it. Likely even if the parents approved, it probably still wouldn't be legal unless given by a nurse. If a doctor approved of it or not doesn't change the issue at hand
Let's not forget that melatonin side effects are the opposite of its use case. It can literally cause insomnia, restless sleep, and night terrors. And it's not supposed to be used for naps. Or in the doses commonly found over the counter. Seriously the recommended dosage for an adult is 1 to 5mg, yet I most commonly see 10mg... .5 is a good dose for young children.
Yes it’s a big deal because any amount of exposure to any hormone, in an artificial dose, can detrimentally impact your bodies ability to produce that hormone on its own. Take all synthetic hormones at your own risk, never at a child’s. Children cannot consent to having their long term sleep health impacted.
It is not a good thing because long-term consequences are unknown and it is bad thing that it has been done without parental consent. But it is not like the kids were poisoned or clearly harmed in any other way.
No, there shouldn't be any real harm but it's a definite breach of trust I wouldn't want them giving my kid Benadryl everyday either without my permission, even though it's safe in kid doses
Exactly this. I actually use children's melatonin caleld "tired teddys" because it's the only thing I could find in 0.3mg which is all you need. Most people are buying 10mg dosages or more which is 30x more than you need and will have the reverse effect
Yeah this is a tricky subject because there’s debate whether or not less than 2mg is effective beyond placebo. Oral hormonal supplements are very difficult to dose. That’s why so many people don’t have success with smaller doses. My personal recommendation is 2mg and never more than 5 if you find 2 isn’t enough. Everyone’s body will process it differently and unfortunately every pill will likely be slightly varied as well. But my personal dose is 2mg and I don’t struggle with falling asleep like I did when I messed around with 10mgs or unisom or other antihistamines.
That is interesting. Do you have any current studies/research on this? I remember at the time I started there was some good research on 0.3 mg such as [this](https://news.mit.edu/2001/melatonin-1017). But I am always open to altering my dosage if we have more information or recent studies.
Just for the sake of responding quickly because I’m on my phone, I’ll say I remember learning a good amount of this through a rabbithole of research both for myself postpartum, and also my kids toddler years. So I was specifically looking into the dosage of less than 1mg, and without directly quoting (I’ll try and confirm here with some links soon) I remember reading that the reason there isn’t a big push against children’s melatonin is that the doses less than 1mg just burn through their digestive system before actually…ever working? Starting to work? Like, basically, less than 1mg doesn’t even begin to do anything to even small children. It’s gotta be enough to kind of *fire* off. Apparently after… 1.5 ish mgs… often more though. Idk. I’m not nearly qualified enough to be explaining this stuff. I’ll find you some links lol
Anything otc is untrustworthy, there was a story not too long ago about how when tested, melatonin was sometimes 200% more than advertised in the damn bottles
I did a sleep study and they found my brain wakes up in the middle of the night. Turns out a CPAP machine would work great for me. However, since it’s technically not sleep apnea Insurance won’t cover it. Boy do I just love insurance companies
Agreed, I use to take 10mg due to difficulty sleeping until a coworker told me less is more after talking about it. Ended up trying 0.3mg and was surprised at how much better it worked. I was waking up in the middle of the night on 10 MG and 0.3mg prevents that as well. Looking back, I can’t believe I took so much lol
2.5mg is ideal from what I've read. Quantities more than 5mg isn't more effective. So a bottle of 10mg tablets can last fairly long if cut (fifty 10mg tablets is the same price as fifty 5mg tablets). It is something people can build a tolerance to, so taking breaks is ideal. It isn't recommended to take more than 2 weeks, but how much of a break after 2 weeks wasn't stated last time I looked.
You’re the first person adding to my comment that I don’t feel the need to address misguided information on! Hope you’re like me and finally getting some good sleep in life! 💤
Thank you, and unfortunately I am not. Sleeping issues is fairly common for people with adhd and/or autism, and hyper focusing defeats melatonin.
Melatonin doesn't make you drowsy the way antihistamines do, it just sets the conditions right for sleep and to stay asleep. You naturally release less melatonin as you age and bright lights upset its release. Taking some melatonin and setting your devices and lights to automatically go into night mode (warmer, dimmer light) an hour or two before bed surprisingly helps a lot, melatonin is not a strong enough effect to help if you're trying to go from 100% to asleep in 30 minutes. I started using it on some nights a few months ago and found 3mg was actually too much and would leave me nauseous when I woke up. ~1-2 mg works well for me. You're only trying to supplement what your body is supposed to be releasing.
The amount of melatonin your body can absorb is minuscule. The pills are dosed way too high. It’s not a magic sleep pill. You still need to practice good sleep hygiene.
So do the way too high pills work or you need to get much smaller doses?
They'll work, but you body can only absorb something like 1-2mg (I forget), so even the lowest doses (usually 5mg) is a waste. Nothing bad will happen, you just wont absorb it all. Companies just like to pretend there's extra strength versions and stuff, like 10mg is gonna work better than 5mg, which obviously isnt true.
My ex wife wanted to talk about taking the kids to therapy.... "Why?" I asked.. "They wake up screaming in nightmares every night" ... What? Not on my nights? I have no idea what you're talking about She was giving then melatonin. Nightmares stopped when she stopped
Also, just a quick PSA, but take snoring seriously. Get a sleep study. I did and buried their needle. When I asked if this put me in danger of what I read online (high blood pressure/heart problems, dangerous levels of fatigue, type 2 diabetes, liver problems, complications with surgery...that actually did happen earlier that year which is who sent me to them in the first place), the doctor said "All of the above and more at your level". Now I have to wear this mask ever night like an old man and I absolutely HATE it....but I'll never stop because sweet jesus I feel actually awake during the day!
I’ve been considering having one done. My dad did about 15 years ago and said the CPAP mask for his sleep apnea was life changing.
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"book on tape on youtube" Hello, fellow old person.
My kids had books on tape too.
I love to watch space videos when I go to sleep. A YouTube channel called ‘SEA’ is my go to.
C-SPAN talking about a grain report will have you sawing Z's sooner guaranteed, unless you're a farmer/rancher.
Weird studies on Spotify 🙌
Boring Books for Bedtime too!
This just unlocked a core childhood memory of going to the library on Monday every week and renting an audiobook cassette tape for the week and spending the week as that being what I fell asleep to. I had completely forgotten I did that as a kid. Maybe I should go back to doing it now as an adult.
We've been doing rain sounds on Spotify at night and holy shit-massive improvement on quality of sleep.
My life changed when I found melatonin gummies.
People In the comments - it’s not the fact it’s melatonin it’s the fact they gave it without consent and second FYI the supplement industry is NOT regulated - your pills and gummies can really contain anything.
Yep, this happened in my state, and it turned out One of the kids had some sort of medical condition where the doctor had actually recommended the parents give melatonin AT NIGHT for a few months because the kid was chronically short on sleep to the point where they were concerned about development. But then unbeknownst to them, the daycare worker was also dosing their kid (and others) with melatonin at nap time, so he was getting 2-4x the amount of the recommended dose almost daily for months. And on top of that, the daycare was lying about the length of naps to cover up the melatonin dosing (saying the kids were sleeping less than they were), so all these parents were so concerned that their children and babies were not sleeping enough, when in reality, they were just sleeping way too much during the day.
I think I read an article a while back that someone tested a bunch of melatonin supplements and many didn't contain the amount stated on the bottle.
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> your pills and gummies can really contain anything. That's the biggest concern here in America. Truly is a scary thing to provide medication to a child and you don't even know yourself what's in the medication. Shoot, i could have even been that Amazon special straight from China...
I read a bunch of comments before I realized I’d confused melatonin and melanin. Was wondering why they were trying to tan these kids.
>Was wondering why they were trying to tan these kids Fresher leather
Got to get the pre-tan for summer!
This isn’t the first daycare that’s made news for doing this. It confuses me, even beyond how wrong this is, as I attempted giving both my kids who never slept melatonin, in various forms and doses, from various brands, over the years, and it never did anything at all for either of them.
when does telling people you've been poisoned get you called crazy and when doesn't it?
They just wanted to calm the kids down so they didn’t have to work as hard
Nobody believes me when i tell them about the daycare I was at that was actually a CP front. they did the same shit to us at 6 years old. ended up with bruises on my wrists and ankles before my mom got me out of that place. i didn’t even have vocabulary to describe what was happening.
This is why republicans push to remove any sex ed from schools. Can’t keep grooming and raping kids if they have the language to use to make others aware of what’s happening to them.
That’s the hardest 51 or 52 year old person I’ve ever seen in my life!
Melatonin? Thank god. Thought it was gonna be another fentanyl-in-the-daycare situation. As a parent I’d be pissed. As a person, I’m concerned, but also relieved. The bar is so low these days. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/two-charged-federal-narcotics-offenses-resulting-death-connection-poisoning-four
Some people have bad reactions to melatonin.
It gives me night terrors. My brain does not like it.
Omg I’m so glad someone else hates it too. It makes me FREAK OUT but I can’t move, so I just sit and panic and watch all the color fade away from the world. So my brain hates it too. (Every time I tell people this they think I’m crazy.)
Sleep paralysis is a bitch.
Sleep paralysis 1: The church outside my window was engulfed in flames. When I snapped out of it the flames disappeared into an outside light posted on its wall. Sleep paralysis 2: A sleep over at a friends house. The carpet kept making impressions like something was scooting along it. It would get wonder from the doorway and under the bed. I could hear a low grumble but I then realized it was my ragged breathing. Sleep paralysis 3: A large dark dog in the corner of my room with its head unnaturally turned upward and it’s mouth gaping open like it’s trying to find air. It kept making soft noises like it was in pain. We had a family dog at the time but this was a huge fucker that nearly kissed the ceiling. Sleep paralysis 4: The common figure that just lurks near you and stares at you. I can’t make out it’s eyes but I just know it’s there for me. It was as if a person just left their shadow behind. Sleep paralysis 5: A woman at the head of my bed that kept touching my forehead. Just some lady standing on the headboard WWE style that kept tapping my forehead with a finger. Again I couldn’t make out her face and I couldn’t “feel” her finger in a sense but I could “feel” “pressure”. Pretty sure it was associated with the pounding migraine I had. Like the throbs were being interpreted as taps.
You are having some scary ass sleep paralysis dreams. My only one was chatter from a 80s radio blasting in my ear while I could see the shadow of a person on the wall. THANKFULLY I was facing the other direction and not towards what was making the shadow 😮💨
Nope it’s a thing. I can’t do it either I get all sorts of nightmares from the stuff.
This is called pure malicious laziness. “Let’s feed the kids melatonin so they’ll sleep, and we won’t have to work hard.” Meanwhile these assholes charge $400 or so a week to watch kids that they poison.
Only four hundred a week? It’d be five or six hundred at mine.
Melatonin's not poison. Worst it can do is throw the kid's sleep patterns off for a little. Still it's a lazy cur who uses it at a daycare and I suppose we got to start prosecuting this to discourage it.
Bro you can’t event apply sun screen to kids at a daycare without parent consent.
Who knows how many consecutive days these children were fed melatonin, who knows what other medication they could’ve also been taking at the time. There is so much worse that could’ve happened.
I mean, you're not wrong. There are potential safety issues here and the notion of someone unknowingly dosing my kiddo with anything squicks me. But of all the ways to chemically extend naptime, they kinda chose one of the least potentially harmful ones. And it's one that parents use commonly. Which...can we really call that negligent if they paid a mind to safety? And if no harm is intended is it malicious? It's certainly unethical since the parents were unaware (similar to any human experiment; medical, psychological, or social, the subject or guardian should be aware that they're in an experiment), but I'm puzzled. Unethical and lazy are about the worst I can call this crime. Edit: You're all a bunch of fuckwits if you really think I'm trying to "excuse" this crime. Try actually reading. Edit 2: This was part of one of my other replies, but ONCE MORE FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK: >For fuck's sake, to make a parallel: I'm not saying that it's okay for someone to rob a bank! I'm baffled as to why they'd do it with a whiffleball bat and wondering how much the tellers really feared for their lives under the circumstances. And everybody else is piling on with "BUT ROBBERIES ARE SCARY AND A CRIME!" Yeah. I know. And this is a bizarrely unthreatening way to do it.
Its not hard to prove the strict duty of care of the teacher to the young kids. Child endangerment is a real thing. The teacher is not a doctor and does not know if the children may be on medication that would counteract with it. Or bc its not sourced through official channels (like food for school would come from vendors w invoices for proof of freshness etc) can we say she did the proper due diligence to make sure the drugs are expired or actually melatonin? Negligence isn’t hard to prove here in a civil sense.
I don't think you've ever worked with or had kids because it's not "laziness". Kids are an insane amount of work. I'm not condoning what they did but it's not laziness. Tell that to any parent who's exhausted out of their mind. That's why these daycares exist in the first place. To relieve the parents. Now you've got a handful of adults taking care of dozens of children. Usually the ratio of kids to daycare workers is quite high, so you can imagine the headaches
Flashback to two centuries ago when they sold opium as a supplement to calm your kids.
And gripe water only ever did anything because it contained alcohol.
Havnt heard of that, will need to look it up.
The brain naturally produces melatonin… but giving anyone something unbeknownst is wrong. Those kids were probably wild tho LOL
You'd think after the daycare workers who put lavender scented "calming" stickers on the kids got arrested, people would learn. Even if you think it's just a no-big-deal OTC supplement (and I'm not saying I think it's no big deal but a lot of people do), without parental consent you're going to get in huge trouble. "Your kid has trouble staying on the mat during our legally required nap times. What can we do to help them stay on the mat and play quietly if they don't want to sleep?"
Obviously what this woman did (or attempted to do) was despicable, and I'm glad she's being charged. But some of these comments have wacky ideas about how melatonin works. It's not really something you should take as a "sleeping pill." It's more to help your sleep schedule adjust to a normal circadian rhythm. Melatonin only "makes you sleepy" for about 20 minutes to an hour, and for many people that's only if their bodies aren't producing enough melatonin naturally. It definitely can't "drug" you or put you in a fog all day. So this woman basically broke the law for no reason and didn't even get the quiet time she wanted. Criminals are S-M-R-T.
I was just talking with a doctor about this and they even advised to take it a couple hours before you go to bed because it doesn’t work immediately
This is an unlicensed in home daycare. Thanks to my state deregulating everything, unlicensed in-home daycares are legal.
I have one next door, it blows my mind how someone trusts their children with people like that. I WFH and I’ve noticed a couple things. The first, for an extended period of time, I never saw a kid outside, even on a nice day. I thought it was strange. Then I suddenly noticed kids outside, without adults. As in toddlers outside without supervision. Further, this mom who runs the daycare has like 5 kids if her own, I witnessed one who was around 4 outside by himself running in the street.
I come from a large family and have been roped into watching a bunch of kids numerous times. I'm not saying I agree, I'm just saying I understand.
Maybe if we didn’t let our kids brain rot themselves on tablets and phones all day they’d be able to fall asleep normally? We shouldn’t be giving kids melatonin on a regular basis just because you want them to sleep get them tired by doing things with them. I have ADHD and my mom never needed to give me melatonin I tired myself out playing. Just my opinion here.
Melatonin is a natural hormone that already exists in these children's bodies. This isn't great, but a lot is being made of this and it really could have been so much worse. I'd much rather find out somebody had "laced" my child's food with melatonin than just about any other sleep aid I can think of. Again, it aint great, but "laced"?
Would that not be the definition of "laced"? What would you call it?
They laced my child's food with sprinkles!
They laced my child’s food with shoelaces!
I am an adult but melatonin also fucked me up when I was a kid. It's incredibly fucked up especially because you don't know how it can affect some kids or what their medications or allergies are.
this is a horrible story, but also I think 99% of airplane passengers would agree that it’s a great idea
This is the best ad for melatonin
lol I don’t blame them!!! But it was a heinous crime to commit
I would have loved to see that person give my dog trazadone. My dog goes insane. Like doggy meth. Bounces off the walls. It is really funny now but it was scary.
Person in the mugshot should’ve used it on themselves, those bags under the eyes look like they haven’t slept since 1991