Hellobee Boards

You could give it a try, but melatonin generally only helps you to fall asleep, it doesn’t keep you asleep.

@ShootingStar: yes this. It doesn’t knock you out like Benadryl or NyQuil.
But maybe if sleep begets sleep with him, you could try to put him to bed earlier with melatonin?

@Eminthevalley: Echo others. If it means anything, I was given the ok to take benedryl when pregnant but not melatonin. If anything I’d try benedryl. I suppose you’d tried this, but he won’t play in his room for an hour or so?

Echo on the melatonin helps fall asleep. Although maybe it would help him fall asleep faster and then since sleep begets sleep...
We used the cvs kid chewable. But 5 is also plenty old enough to understand wake times. Do you have a clock that changes colors at morning time? Starting at 2 we taught ours that if they woke up before the clock changed it was their job to try to go back to sleep to rest their bodies. We also instituted a sticker chart system for one child who struggled with resting quietly in the mornings. Once she started actually resting quietly she started sleeping later.

@Eminthevalley: my daughter wakes up earlier than everyone else and we have a rule that aside from going to the bathroom she can't go into any other room til we come get her out talk to her through the monitor. A friend of ours uses a color changing alarm clock to let her daughter know when she can go to other rooms.
I wouldn't try to keep him asleep with any medication if he isn't suffering from waking up that early.

Is there something that causes him to wake so early? Noise from people starting their commute, birds chirping, etc? If so, maybe try some white noise to help cover up the outside sounds. My DD isn’t usually an early riser but if she does wake earlier than usual, it’s generally because of some noise she heard (she’s a really heavy sleeper at night but light sleeper toward the morning).

@Eminthevalley: If he's thriving and the early waking isn't causing any behavior or learning issues, unfortunately I also second the comment about learning to live with it. I actually have the opposite problem - my 5 yo is a night owl and the earliest she goes to bed is around 10 pm. If she naps at pre-K, then it's easily 11-11:30. It's exhausting because I am a morning person and am dead to the world by 10, and she likes to have someone lay down with her until she falls asleep so DH and I take turns but it fries both of us out. We've considered melatonin, but ultimately I couldn't get past the fact that it's a hormone and since I can't see an actual issue to be causing this for her and she's growing and thriving, I don't want to force it on her. Over the last few years, we've come to accept that this is just her natural rhythm (she's been like this since about 2 years old, so it's not a departure from "normal.") I know it's really rough, but like others said, I don't think melatonin will help since it's meant to calm down for bed. May be worth a try, but I did have my hesitations.