[donovansmom]

My 11 year old has Agenesis of the Corpus Collosum as well as a list of other diagnoses. I am hoping others can offer suggestions on how to help my son sleep more than 3-4 hours a night. He never has even as a baby. His psychiatrist had us start him on melatonin but that did not help. Once he did go to sleep he woke up less than 30 minutes later saying he had weird dreams. This was the result every night he took the medicine. He has been tried on several different prescription medications but nothing helps. He does have bad dreams most nights he does sleep. His psychiatrist said Donovan doesn't get past the REM sleep stage which causes the frequent bad dreams. His current medication is supposed to help with that but so far even though he has been on it for quite some time and had the dosage increased there is no improvement. He is frequently grumpy, sleep deprived, and has dark circles around his eyes. His tv, games, etc get taken from his room every night so he won't be tempted to force himself to stay awake. He is developmentally delayed so I have been able to get away with keeping him away from violent or scary games, movies, and shows to prevent bad dreams. (so of course he has bad dreams about Veggie tales) Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.