Sleep Remedy Kids vs $5 Bottle of Melatonin Gummies
This is one of the most popular questions we get asked about our Kids Sleep Remedy product. Why would parents want to spend $50 a month on a sleep aid for their kids, when they can easily go buy a $5 bottle of melatonin gummies?
There are three things we are going to cover to answer this question for you:
- What is happening when your kid is going to sleep?
- What sleep does?
- Why we might need a supplement to assist in sleep?
First. remember evolutionarily, we use the sun as our cue on when to go to sleep and when to be awake. In simple terms, our eyes see the sunlight and cue our systems circadian rhythm. When the sun goes down and there is no more sense of light, our brains and bodies secrete a hormone we are all very familiar with; Melatonin.
Way back then, there was no electricity or surrounding factors to get in the way of our most natural sleep cycles. In today’s day and age, things are different.
Did You Know? Melatonin doesn’t make you sleep. It initiates the cascade of events that lead to you falling asleep. There are hundreds of things that have to change for your body to fall asleep.
These things that occur within the brain and body allow us to get ALL the benefits from sleep.
What are those benefits?
Everything that happens during the day is solidified, recovered, and rejuvenating through sleep. Throughout the day, your kid is breaking herself/himself down, their getting tired, stressing their muscles, using up their energy stores, and their soaking in endless information into their brain.
Sleep is when all the above get organized along with:
- New skills
- Emotional events
- Muscle memory
- Physical strength
- Tissue repairs
- Bone growth
The most important part of this process involves the Prefrontal Cortex. This part of our brains makes us the smartest animal on the blanket. It allows us to do what we call executive functions like:
- Reading
- Solving math problems
- Making decisions
- Determining good from the bad
Guess which area of the brain is MOST impacted by POOR/INADEQUATE SLEEP?
Yes! The Prefrontal Cortex.
We want this region of our kids’ brains to be functioning at its best. This is what they are utilizing the most during school and extracurricular activities, especially adolescents.
Better Executive Functioning = Better Ability To Learn
If we want their brains to function to the best of their abilities, this means they need to be getting quality and proper quantity of sleep. For kids, depending on age, need 9-12 hours every night.
Your kid’s prefrontal cortex ( aka The Simulator) is going to be used to determine what he/she want to pursue, the decisions they are going to make, set goals, make sense out of their surroundings, etc.
It is such a critical part of the brain, that doing anything to potentially hinder growth and development is just a non-negotiable, right? This part of the brain is the most important part of who your kids are going to grow up to be. Sleep deprivation or inadequate sleep will negatively impact your kids potential in the future
OK, keeping this in mind, let’s get back to melatonin.
Through the cascade of events that happen before falling asleep, the brain secretes a very, very little amount of melatonin, and continues to do so all night long. From the time the sun goes down to sunrise, for an adult, the brain will have produced about 6 micrograms. For kids, this is lower.
So, if you give your kid a 1-5mg gummy, what can happen is something we call tachyphylaxis.
Tachyphylaxis Explained: The body only needs about .6 mg and it’s getting 5mg all at once. The body is now overloaded. Being that melatonin is a hormone, and hormones have receptors that are responsible for bringing melatonin into our cells, if there is an abundance of melatonin around all at once, the smart machines that our bodies are, will recognize this and react by not making as many receptors.
Now, we take away that melatonin gummy, with a decreased amount of receptors, essentially has a melatonin deficiency and is potentially dependent on it.
We also don’t know exactly what happens with 5mg of melatonin for kids. Is it overstimulating cells? Is it changing the physiology of their sleep?
It’s not a great idea. Read more about Kids & Melatonin here.
The best thing that you can do for your kid is to practice a really good bedtime routine that involves:
- Decreasing the blue light
- Decreasing stimulation
- Decreasing body temperature
- Setting their room to be cool/dark
- Diving them 60-90 minutes to prepare for sleep
Check out our Kids Sleep Optimization Checklist
Taking too much of any hormone will lead to downregulation of receptors and therefore becoming reliant on taking exogenous sources to get the essentials.
Now Let’s Bring In Sleep Remedy Kids
Our product contains all the constituent ingredients and nutrients that you need to make your own melatonin, including a very tiny amount of melatonin just for a jumpstart to then initiate the cascade of events that your body will naturally go through to initiate the sleep cycle.
Think of it as us bringing all the supplies to the construction site, the construction crew being the mechanisms in their brains are there to do all of the work, we are just here to make sure they are the nutrients they need to do their job.
Some deficiencies are common in all American adults and kids and because of this, too many are suffering from sleep deprivation that can lead to a multitude of physical and mental issues.
This is my case against purchasing the cheap kids’ melatonin gummy. Sleep is too critical for growth and development to not make it a priority.
READY TO TRY SLEEP REMEDY KIDS? GREAT! HERE’S A DISCOUNT CODE!
Code: SLEEPREMEDYKIDS for 10% off your first Sleep Remedy Kids purchase
enter code at CHECKOUT
(one-time use/active through 10/6)
