In today’s world of modern medicine, it’s so easy to try to solve just about every problem with a pill, but does that work for children? If your child is having trouble sleeping, especially if they are a young baby or toddler, then there may not be very many options for you to try in the form of medications or pills that are safe and effective. In today’s article, we’re going to recommend some excellent effective sleep aids to help you get the edge you need when it comes to helping your child fall asleep faster and more deeply. Sound off in the comments if you have any of your own sleep remedies or recommendations for our readers! We’d love to hear from you.
Supplement Recommendation For Children: Magnesium Gummies Or Chewables
One dietary supplement that we can recommend in order to help your child sleep is a magnesium supplement. Whether it’s a gummy or powder or chewable, whichever your child can consume safely, we like to recommend this because magnesium is a mineral that the body needs in over 300 cellular functions and is considered a major mineral. Our bodies need to consume and store a lot of it to function properly, including kids! The majority of adults and children are considered magnesium deficient, so it’s a good idea to supplement it in your diet and in your child’s diet, especially if there are sleep challenges. 1 to 2 gummies, depending on age and weight before bed will help your child relax and can help them adapt to new sleep habits and routines more seamlessly.
Telling if your child is a good candidate for a magnesium supplement. Watch their bowel movement behavior. This is usually a good test for tolerance and need. If their bowels are slow, more magnesium is usually needed to regulate. If bowels are lose, back off a little or maybe give smaller dose or alternate days for supplements. Also, we encourage you to have your child brush their teeth after eating this or any other gummy vitamin since they do contain sugar and brushing their teeth afterwards can help prevent cavities and tartar buildup.
You can find these gummies here on Amazon!
Why Magnesium Is So Important
Here’s the long and the short of it. For every molecule of sugar we ingest, our bodies use 54 molecules of magnesium to process it! That means that we need 54 times as much magnesium in our body as sugar in order to break it down properly. Regardless of the carbohydrate source, we still need magnesium to help process it. For example, 4 grams of carbohydrates equal one teaspoon of sugar in our body. Which means that for every 4 grams of carbs consumed, the body is forced to convert that into 1 gram of sugar. So with that thought, a small Blizzard has 530 calories and 83 grams of carbohydrates; which equals 21 teaspoons of sugar. A nine ounce bag of potato chips equals 32 teaspoons of sugar…add a soda, that’s another 16 teaspoons of sugar. In short, we need a lot of magnesium in order to process our everyday foods! Note: When considering giving magnesium to your children, please consult your physician and also look at this dosing chart provided by the NIH.
We Encourage Avoiding Melatonin
Most parents turn to melatonin to aid in sleep. This is a powerful hormone. Taking supplemental melatonin can cause issues with the body’s ability to produce its own. We recommend staying away from this unless under careful supervision of your doctor.
Before You Go
We hope you enjoyed learning about tips for supplementing your child’s diet in order to help with sleep. If you would like to know more about this, our sleep programs or any of our excellent newborn care services, we are happy to help. Just contact us and we can go over your options and help you find the best path for your little one. We hope these tips have helped you along your journey. If you have any questions about helping your baby to sleep better, or about your baby in general, please reach out to us HERE. We are experts in all things baby and sleep and would love to help!
If you have questions about your child, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We would love to help. Please reach out to us here! We always look forward to hearing from you.
