first night | ADHD Information

So my son took 18 mg Concerta this morning. He went to bed about a half
hour late with a puffy tired looking face and glazed wired eyes. All in all, not
that bad, I don't think. He complained a bit about his stomach and wasn't
hungry at all. I'll add ice cream to his Carnation Instant Breakfast - he'll love
that - to get some more calories into him this first week. I think it's going
to be okay. Now I just have to cross my fingers that the drug actually
works...So, he went to bed a half hour late and was completely quiet so I figured he
was asleep.   I check on him when I went to bed at 11:30 - he was still
awake reading! I'm thinking he's going to have a really rough day today...Try Melatonin, I swear it is like Magic. Give 1/2 hour before bed and mine is asleep for the night at 8:30pm till 6am. The Carnation Instant is a great idea we did that for a long time.spamula39835.3052430556THAT was the ONE bad thing about starting ADHD meds with my younger son; we had to add clonidine to the mix to help with sleeping (melatonin alone doesn't work). My older son is also on clonidine for sleep issues (though his are more due to autism than ADHD issues).

My younger son has also lost a couple of pounds (nothing major AND he's always had a difficult time gaining/keeping weight on) so we switched him from skim milk to whole milk and he hasn't lost any more weight. He's not a big junk food eater and he's just not a big eater in general so we just increase calories when we can.

He's not fond of the carnation instant breakfast but will drink it if I insist.
I'm going to give this drug two weeks before I start adding more stuff to the
mix. Definitely tonight I'm going to check in on him even if he's quiet! I
haven't heard from the school, so he must be okay there. I'm thinking since
he already had sleep issues that's going to be the side effect I'm going to
have to deal with the most...We had the same response. The second night we gave him
melatonin after he'd been awake a while. The third
through fifth nights we gave him melatonin 1/2 hour
before lights out. Stopped the melatonin after that and
he hasn't needed it. We'll see what happens when his
Concerta goes to the full dose next Wednesday. I'm
guessing the same thing until his body adjusts.