Medication :(

Alex at the Library

We have had a interesting week. Alex's behavior has excalated to the point that I worry about him hurting his baby brother by accident, and poor Alex has pretty much stopped sleeping. So I finally made a call to his Developmental Specialist. She suggested Melatonin for his sleeping issues and Ritalin. I really DID NOT want to put my son on medication. I know it can help, I have seen it help many children, especially in school. But, I agreed to try it for a while. I can't even leave the room to go to the bathroom without Alex climbing in on the baby. He even gets up during the night and climbs in his crib. I thought it was some sort of obsession but the doctor seems to think it is impulsive behavior.  We started a real low dose of Ritalin this morning and it seemed to work for a few hours, but overall Alex's behavior was better today, and he wasn't a zombie, that was one of my BIG worries! I will try this for awhile, but I hope we don't have to do it long term or maybe we can switch to something else. Alex is so young and Ritalin has some long term side effects I don't like. I really hope things are better when we can get back on his schedule. The winter weather has all of us thrown off! 

As for the Meletonin it is a vitamin and I can't believe how well it works. Alex goes to sleep about a hour after taking it and last night he slept through the night. Medication makes me nervous though. I have always been sort of against it. When I started working with kids though and saw how life changing it could be I sort of warmed up to the idea, but that was not my child. As you can tell I feel so guilty, so please don't leave any nasty comments, if you can't say anything nice, kindly keep it to yourself! :)