There's been a major jump in parents using prescription medicine to get children to sleep with tens of thousands of pills given to young people every year - some under the age of one.
Melatonin - the natural sleep hormone - is a restricted medicine in New Zealand only available from your doctor here.
It's been funded by Pharmac since 2017, but some claim parents simply see it as a magic bullet when it comes to sleep.
Thousands of doses have been prescribed to pre-schoolers, the Ministry of Health says some are just babies, but it won't reveal how many.
“It's difficult to unpack the numbers - but we do know that melatonin is a relatively safe medication for short term use, we are just unsure of any data or studies that indicate if there is a longer term problem with it,” Dr Bryan Betty told 1 NEWS.
Melatonin is often used in children with conditions such as ADHD and autism, but mums and dads are giving it to kids without those conditions too.
However, it's illegal to bring it into New Zealand without authority.
Customs seized almost 100,000 doses of melatonin over the past decade for both adults and children.
Earlier this year there was one attempt to get 1250 pills into the country, but it was stopped at the border.
The Ministry of Health’s advice remains clear - medicine shouldn't be the first preference to treat young insomniacs even though it may be the preference for parents.
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