Dealing with time zone changes and jet lag can eat into the time we have to enjoy our holiday, or make adjusting to life at home all the more difficult. It can be even harder for children – and when children don’t sleep well, parents don’t either. Around one in four children already have trouble getting to sleep, or getting back to sleep when they wake in the night.
This can worsen when travelling internationally. In a bid to help children’s general sleep problems, some parents have resorted to giving their children lollies, or gummies, containing melatonin . Some parents have also turned to melatonin to help their child sleep in the new time zone or when they return home.
Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone secreted in our brains. Its main purpose is to maintain our sleep and wake cycles by making us sleepy at night time. But does it work to combat kids’ jet lag? And is it safe? Melatonin is produced by the pineal gland in the brain in response to darkness.
Melatonin sets off a series of physiological processes which help promote sleepiness and the onset of sleep at the end of the day. So it can be really effective at helping adults get to sleep. The use of melatonin in adults as a sleep aid has more than tripled in the last few years.
And adults have long used melatonin to treat jet lag . In Australia , melatonin is categorised as a pharmaceutical product. This means it can only be accessed via prescription and overseen by a medical professional.
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