Children and pregnancy

Should my teenager take melatonin?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 15, 20268 sources

Ask their doctor before they take it. The American Academy of Pediatrics says to use melatonin only after talking to your child’s doctor, and there are no set doses for anyone under 18. A teen who can’t fall asleep before midnight often has a body clock that runs late, which is common at that age, and a fixed wake time with morning light moves it back without a pill.

This is general information, not medical advice. It sums up what pediatricians and the studies below say as of November 2026, and a worry about your own teen’s sleep is a question for their doctor.

Why teens are up so late

A 16-year-old who’s wide awake at midnight and can’t get up for school looks a lot like someone with insomnia. Often the clock has moved instead. The CDC says that in puberty, “biological rhythms commonly shift so that adolescents become sleepy later at night”.

School doesn’t move with it. In the 2011 to 2012 school year, only 17.7 percent of US public middle and high schools started at 8:30am or later, the time the American Academy of Pediatrics asked schools to aim for in 2014. The AAP says teens need 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep. A teen who falls asleep at midnight and gets up at 6:30am gets 6.5.

It’s a bit like living one time zone west of everyone else. Every school morning is a small dose of jet lag, and every lie-in on the weekend flies them back west again.

What moves the clock back

We’d start where the AAP starts, with sleep habits, and work on the same clock melatonin works on. Keep one wake time on school days and weekends, and get outside in the morning light.

• One wake time, weekends too. Sleeping in until noon on Saturday moves the clock later again. In a 2005 study of young adults, the time people woke on days with no alarm was the best guide to when their own melatonin started.
• Daylight soon after waking. Light in the morning pulls the body clock earlier, and light late in the evening pushes it later.
• Dim evenings. In 116 adults aged 18 to 30, ordinary room light in the 8 hours before bed made their melatonin start later in 99 percent of them. Lamps instead of overhead lights keep the evening dim.
• Small steps. Move bedtime 15 to 30 minutes earlier every few days instead of two hours at once, and keep the wake time fixed while it moves.

If they drink coffee or energy drinks, caffeine.guide works out when the last one of the day should be. How to increase melatonin naturally has every habit that helps a body make its own, and it works at any age.

Why there’s no dose here

Melatonin is a hormone. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says that because of that, supplements could affect hormonal development, including puberty, and nobody knows for sure. The AAP’s page notes there are no specific guidelines on melatonin dosing for children, so any dose for a teen is a decision for their doctor. Their doctor can also look for other reasons a teen can’t sleep.

That’s why the melatonin window gives anyone under 18 the light plan and no dose, and why the quiz does the same.

Keep the bottle put away

The AAP asks parents to keep all medicines and supplements in a safe place, away from children, and that includes a teen’s jar if there are younger children at home. If a child swallowed melatonin, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222, and 911 if they can't be woken or have trouble breathing. What to do if your child ate melatonin gummies walks through it, and is melatonin safe for kids? covers younger children.