I can only tell you our experience.  My 8 year old son is on 36mg of Concerta ER.  It seems to be working well for him.  Sometimes he comes home cranky but he seems to be getting over that, thankfully.

We have a 5mg booster that he takes if he has after school activities.  We have found that it has ZERO impact on his sleep.  He takes it around 3:30 on the days he needs it. 

That said, he takes 5mg of melatonin about an hour before bed.

Agree with swimmingly. Our daughter is on Adderal a slow release in the am and a low dose booster after school for homework and activities. I think it is the timing of the booster.

Just last night we had this exact problem. My son started 10 mg Ritalin yesterday in the morning and then one when he got home from school. It seemed to help him concentrate on his homework, but he was up until after 12:30am last night! It was awful. That was after 3mg of Melatonin as well.

I was thinking of asking for the 5mg dose of Ritalin for the evening, but the thought of going back to the days of no sleep are frightening. Concerta had terrible side effects for him as well.

Thank you for the above responces to this dosage problem because those ideas are definetly worth trying. I’ve heard that it can take a lot of tweaking to find the right solution for each child.

My son takes doses of Ritalin at (10 mg) 7:00 AM, (10 mg) 10:20 AM and (5 mg) 1:00 PM. We just started the 1:00 PM dose a couple weeks ago, and it has already caused some difficulties for him staying asleep even though the doctor has prescribed an antihistamine and melatonin 1 mg at bedtime. So, I think 5 PM is too late.