How This Mum Ignored What Her GP Said And Relieved Her Son's Growing Pains

The part that still gets me is that most nights, I didn't hear a thing.

Tom is nine, and five nights a week for two years, he was lying in the dark sobbing into his pillow about his legs.

Sobbing, because his shins hurt so much he couldn't keep still. And he didn't want to wake his mum and dad up, so he would just lie there.

Every time I finally got to him he was curled up in a ball, his head on a wet patch of pillow, holding his shins.

You sit on the end of the bed in the dark and you rub his legs, because it's the only thing you can think of to do.

And you rub them for a minute or two and he keeps crying, and you keep going, and eventually he wears himself out.

Then it's one in the morning and you're standing in the hallway with your hands still warm, thinking the same thing you thought last night.

I don't know how to help him.

Two years of that.

And the worst part wasn't the crying.

The GP Told Me He Would Grow Out Of It

We went. Of course we went.

She felt his legs, checked he could weight bear, asked whether it was ever one side or ever in the morning, and told me it was almost certainly growing pains.

Then she said the thing.

"They usually grow out of it."

That was it. No plan. Nothing to try.

So I walked out with a nine year old who was going to lie in his bed each night, in agony, unable to sleep, waiting to "grow out of it."

I refused to listen to that, so here is what I had tried.

Two years, one GP and about four hundred dollars, and he was still crying into his pillow on Wednesdays.

Then a physio strapping his ankle told me why none of it had worked.

The Physio Told Me I Was Doing It Right. Badly.

Tom does junior footy, and the club has a physio who comes down on a Thursday.

I only spoke to her because he had rolled an ankle, and I mentioned the night thing while she was strapping it.

She asked how long I rubbed his legs for.

I said a minute, maybe two, and only once he was already crying.

"You're doing the right thing. You just aren't doing it correctly."

Then she recommended I make three changes.

Do it earlier. By the time I get to Tom he has been lying there for God knows how long. Do it before bed.

Do it longer. I was doing a minute and he'd settle a little. She told me to keep going well past that point.

Then she emphasised the one bit she said actually mattered.

You need to be using Midnight & Star Sleep Cream.

An Australian magnesium cream made for children, rubbed into the feet and legs before bed.

She recommends it to every kid she sees with growing pains, and she says she doesn't see them back.

I nearly didn't bother. I had already failed at the chewable magnesium.

But I bought it anyway, mostly because I had run out of things left to try.

The first night, he slept straight through. I thought it was a fluke.

By the end of the first week, I wasn't as tense. I wasn't bracing for it.

Then two weeks passed. Then a month.

The kid who spent two years sobbing into his pillow was now sleeping through the night, completely pain free.

Tom hasn't cried about his legs since this cream.

What I didn't understand was why this cream worked so well, and everything else didn't.

Why It Works, And Why It Had To Be A Cream

Magnesium is the mineral the body leans on to calm the nervous system and increase natural melatonin production.

Adults have had it for decades, but nobody has ever made it for a small kid.

It has a double effect.

The magnesium soaks in through the skin, and the rubbing is the signal for his body to switch off.

Five slow minutes before bed. On the soles of his feet, or onto his legs where the pain is.

And this is the part I had wrong for two years.

You do it on the good nights too. The rub isn't what you do when it starts. It's what stops it starting.

And it ticked every other box I had been looking for.

• Made at kids' strength. Not the adult bottle off the chemist shelf.
• A gentle cream, rubbed into the feet and legs. Five slow minutes.
• Five simple ingredients. Magnesium chloride, lavender, chamomile, vitamin E, vanilla.
• No melatonin, and no nut oils. Tom's skin flares if you look at it wrong.
• Designed for kids with growing pains. Not a sleep aid that happens to have magnesium in it.

It Was Not Just The Pain That Improved

It's amazing comparing the kid before we had the cream to what Tom is like now with it.

The smile on his face is back, and brighter than before. He is the happiest little kid now. Thanks to this cream.

He gets himself up for school. No hassle. No fights. No pretending to be sick.

He is energised and bubbly all through the day, engaged with his friends and more chatty with us, and is excited to actually do things.

His footy coach also noticed the difference and pulled me aside at training one afternoon and asked me what had changed.

That's when I knew the cream had worked.

Tom's coach said he was running after people again, chasing for the ball, shrugging tackles and most importantly smiling with his friends.

I've noticed the benefits too. Because Tom doesn't wake up any more, my sleep is back to normal.

My patience levels have increased massively, I'm not as snappy with my husband any more, and I finally don't feel like a zombie.

To say this cream has fixed our sleepless household and made it pain free would be an understatement.

For a long time I assumed we'd just got lucky.

78% Of 500 Parents Said The Night Time Leg Troubles Stopped

Go and read the reviews on the Midnight & Star site.

4.8 stars from 354 parents.

They ran a survey of their own too, 500 parents, four weeks in.

78% said the night time growing pain troubles had stopped.

90% said their own sleep had improved as well, which nobody warns you about.

Kids who had been crying themselves to sleep most nights of the week for years, sleeping through.

What I didn't know when I ordered it was how little I was actually risking.

The Guarantee, And The Blanket I Did Not Expect

Here is the deal, because I had to work it out myself.

Midnight & Star are so confident they can settle a kid whose legs keep him up crying, they will give you 60 nights to prove them wrong.

And for a limited time, every subscription comes with 35% off and a free heavyweight blanket.

Not the thin thing you would have bought yourself, a proper heavyweight one.

Tom sleeps under his every night now, footy season or not.

So if the cream somehow doesn't settle your kid, you email them and they refund you immediately.

You keep the tub. You keep the blanket. You keep the 35%.

In other words, you only end up paying for it if it turns out to be the thing that fixed your nights.

And having had two years of standing in that hallway, I'd put money on it.