Zarbee’s Naturals-Children’s Sleep

A Product Review based on my own experiences

As a mom of (2) boys loaded with energy and armed with ADHD, there is no such thing as “winding” down for the night. The only way my boys are quite, is if they are being hypnotized by the tv or tablets; which of course is unacceptable at night because once they are off they are still charged more than ever.

It wasn’t so bad before COVID because they would go to school then after school was a health and fitness place where they did a lot of running and exercises. By the time I picked them up after work and brought them home, homework, dinner, they were tired. Sometimes they would have a hard time falling asleep, but it wasn’t so bad the I needed to seek help.

In March, about 1 week into the “new normal” COVID world, is when we started having problems getting to sleep every.single.night! I didn’t automatically think sleep aids, I started making them exercise following along to YOU TUBE workout videos for kids, running on the treadmill, locking them outside in the backyard….did I say locking, I meant encouraging them to play. It helped some, but it still wasn’t enough. They were still getting out of bed every hour until midnight-1:00 am. You can imagine how tired I was as I still had to wake up and work from home and make them get up and deal with their bad attitudes because they were tired, do school work with them, feed them, and try and keep the house clean enough that it wasn’t inviting roaches to visit. Oh yeah, and not loose my mind in the process. Am I painting a familiar picture here?

When they are sick with a bad cough or runny nose, I give them the Zarbee’s Cough syrup with melatonin, it knocks them out fast and helps clear up the nose and throat. I have used it for years, luckily they don’t need it much, I am blessed with pretty healthy kiddos. That being said, at this point I got to wondering what other melatonin products were out there. I have come to find out there is quite a few, being that Zarbee’s have already proven effective and safe to this point I decided to try there Children’s Sleep vitamins.

As with everything, there are a lot of different reviews. Some people loved it and other hated it. I fall into the category of love. The recommend serving for their age is 2 yummy gummy vitamins, for us two is too much! They went to sleep really fast, but they would wake up in the middle of the night super thirsty. I tried it out and even I would wake up thirsty, which is very uncommon for me unless I have had to much grown up juice that night. I cut them back to just 1 yummy gummy melatonin vitamin and we have a wonderful nights rest.

It’s now September, we are still home living the “new normal”. We all exercise, now that school is back unfortunately I don’t get what I need in that area, but that’s a different story. They still run and are locked, I mean encouraged to play outside as much as possible. They are limited to only 1-2 hours of video/games a day. All of those things help, but the fact is they can outlast the energizer rabbit. On school nights, taking our “night time vitamins” has become part of the routine just before story time. Once the story is over they are more than ready for bedtime. On the weekends, I usually let them stay up really late and watch family movies or we play the Wii dance revolution or mario cart. Yes. I said Wii as in Nintendo Wii. That’s the last game console I have purchased.

I purchase this on Amazon, I haven’t seen it at any local stores like Walmart or Target. If your child has a hard time falling a sleep at night and you want to try a natural effective sleep aid, I highly suggest this one. Like mine, the recommended dosage might be to much which works out better because the bottle will last longer.

I hope this helps parents who are looking for natural safe sleep aids for their little ones.

I wasn’t paid or given free product to do this review. These are my own honest opinions and real results from our family. I just wanted to share our experience.

Wishing you a Happy, Healthy, Smart, Strong, and Successful Day!

When We Believed in Mermaids- by: Barbara O’Neal

Usually when I read fiction I read something in the Scify-fantasy realm. I decided to venture out and try something different. Broaden my horizons!

Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s being a mom, maybe it’s being on locked down with the kids for 6 months and I’m going somewhat insane. I have been drawn to more sentimental type stories. So I googled popular books and this one came up, not going to lie, the title grabbed my attention more than anything as I have always loved mermaids.

When I was little we lived in South Florida and my grandparents had a boat that we use to go out on. We would snorkel and swim between fishing sessions ( in different spots of course). I had always felt out of place and sad as a child. I never felt like I quite fit in anywhere. I wasn’t really bullied in school and I had a good home, it wasn’t perfect, but my parents provided everything we needed. I was the sweet and quite girl; because of that other kids assumed I was smart. After “The Little Mermaid” was released from Disney, I wished more than anything I could turn into a mermaid and always pretended to be one when we were at the pool or in the ocean. I think it’s all of those memories that drew me to the title.

Once I got started with this book, I couldn’t put it down. It was very well written and I didn’t get bored with the characters because the chapters bounced from Kit to her sister Josie. Showing different perspectives to the same story.

The story is about sisters who grew up on the coast of California. Their parents owned a restaurant and were not very involved with their daughters. The girls were allowed to sleep on the beach and run wild and on their own until an runaway boy came to live with them and took on the responsibility of looking out and caring for them. The three kids loved one another and would to anything for each other.

A broken family, as they grew the problems grew and the kids couldn’t hold on to one another as they became adults. While Kit was is college, Josie became a party girl and disappeared. Fifteen years later, Kit goes on a mission to find her sister and while doing so finds a happier version of herself.

It’s a beautiful story of overcoming the tragedies that life sometimes gives and about letting go of the hurt and giving yourself permission to forgive. In so doing, finding love and acceptance. Families may be living in the same story, however we see from different perspectives and still experience different circumstances.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for inspiration to let go of their hurt, find love, and who want a good cry at the end.