Summary: We added Hiya’s Bedtime Essentials into my daughter’s nighttime routine for a melatonin-free supplement to support relaxation at the end of the day. The non-habit forming chewable has key minerals and electrolytes like Marine Magnesium, Vitamin B6, and the amino acid L-theanine — which, when taken with GABA (conveniently also one of the ingredients!), has been shown to potentially increase sleep duration and REM sleep. It took no time at all for my daughter to start asking for her Hiya Bedtime chew, which she says has a citrusy, lightly sweet taste even though there’s zero added sugar. Taking her Bedtime Essentials signals the beginning of our bedtime routine, and has become an important step in the process of winding down her energy and prepping for sleep.
Pros
- Hiya’s Bedtime Essentials is sweetened with monk fruit, not sugar, formulated in a non-gummy chewable that is dentist- and pediatrician-approved.
- The formula is free from melatonin, which experts now believe might contribute to health issues like delayed puberty or pediatric overdoses over the long term.
- Hiya conducts third-party testing to ensure the highest quality product, including heavy metal testing on every batch of every product made.
- The supplements come in cute, eco-friendly packaging along with stickers so kids can personalize the refillable containers.
Cons
- If you are not used to buying high-quality wellness supplements or vitamins, $35 for a one-month supply might seem steep — but with 50% off first orders, it’s worth trying.
- Kids accustomed to gummy vitamins might need a few exposures to Hiya’s chewables before getting used to their unique texture.
- Bedtime Essentials only has one color and flavor, unlike the multivitamin and immune support supplements my daughter also loves (if your kid isn’t as committed to variety as mine, this probably won’t be an issue!).
After my daughter was born in 2019, it didn’t take long before I began to dread 5:30 p.m. What was once considered a joyful finish line to the workday, Happy Hour was replaced with the Witching Hour — a.k.a. scream-o-clock when our infant inexplicably lost her mind as we tried to implement a consistent end-of-the-day schedule to establish her circadian rhythm.
“Bedtime with young children is no joke.”
Though the nonstop crying of her babyhood subsided, the hamster wheel drudgery of the last few hours of each day persisted. Instead of sipping cocktails without a care in the world (let alone a dinner plan), we were suiting up for the daily grind of The Nighttime Routine, a deceptively simple-sounding sequence of dinner, bath, book, and bed. What this list doesn’t include is what happens during the transitions between each activity: The resistance, the cleanup, the endless dragging on and on of one last request. There’s a mutual dread that contributes to a surprising amount of begging and bargaining from both parties, as children work to delay the inevitable separation, and parents become increasingly desperate for it. “Please, please, please,” we both say, wanting totally different outcomes. Bedtime with young children is no joke.
All this to say, I’m very invested in continuing to build healthy habits around my child’s sleep and rest, knowing that the road is a long one and progress isn’t exactly straightforward or always visible to the naked eye. I am attentive to all the variables we introduce, especially since her diagnosis of type 1 diabetes in April of 2024, which added the complication of glucose management to the mix. Dinner was no longer just a negotiation about how many green things she needed to eat before she could start requesting a dessert, but instead a careful choreography of timing, math, and insulin dosing. Since nighttime lows are a serious fear for T1D families, it’s crucial we are very intentional about what she eats after 5 p.m. Which is why I was intrigued and excited to try the Hiya Bedtime Essentials, a safe, sugar-free daily chewable formulated to support winding down without any of the ingredients with potential side effects or long-term implications on her health.
“I’m very invested in continuing to build healthy habits around my child’s sleep and rest, knowing that the road is a long one and progress isn’t exactly straightforward.”
My daughter has been enjoying the Hiya Kids Daily Multivitamin and the Kids Daily Greens + Superfoods for general nutritional support, as well as the Kids Daily Probiotic and the Kids Immune Sticks for a few months now. While it took her a while to adjust to the chewables, which were not as candy-like to her gummy-tuned palate, eventually she started looking forward to them as part of her morning routine, using a gently chiding tone if I’d forgotten to add them to her breakfast plate. It became a bit of a game to see which color chewable she’d get (green is her favorite).
For our initial Hiya review, I’d intentionally not chosen the Bedtime Essentials because I’ve always been a little wary of anything that felt too much like drugging my kid for sleep — plus, having just entered into the diabetes world, I had become newly aware of how powerful hormones are, and so any supplement with the word “sleep” on it was automatically compartmentalized as “avoid” in my brain in an effort to stay away from melatonin. This knee-jerk bias meant I didn’t even read the copy for the product, which very clearly and prominently says “no melatonin.” Whoops!
Once I actually sat down to read the ingredients for Bedtime Essentials, I was excited to give them to my daughter.
The key nutrients are Marine Magnesium, which is sourced from fresh seawater and includes up to 70 trace minerals and electrolytes; Vitamin B6, which is known for brain support; calcium; chamomile flower extract; choline, known to help regulate REM sleep and restorative rest; L-theanine, an amino acid which supports calm and relaxation (I’ve actually been taking this myself for the past year!) which, when combined with Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), can promote more restful sleep cycles.
Just like all products produced by the brand, every single batch of Sleep Essentials is third-party tested for heavy metals and microbials in a qualified, FDA-compliant lab (practically no other companies do this!). Hiya is so committed to safety that they’ll even provide detailed lab results for every order upon request. We love this kind of transparency!
“Just like all products produced by the brand, every single batch of Sleep Essentials is third-party tested for heavy metals and microbials in a qualified, FDA-compliant lab.”
Like the other chewables we’ve been using in the morning from Hiya, these are like a fat, crumbly Smartie. They have a consistency and flavor that vaguely remind me of the Flintstones vitamins of my own childhood. The Bedtime Essentials are sweetened with monk fruit, resulting in a mild, citrusy flavor that both my daughter and I find pleasant and not overpowering. It doesn’t linger in the mouth or taste too much like health food, though it does dissolve if your kid is prone to clutching it inexplicably for long periods in their sweaty palm before consuming it. 🤷🏻‍♀️
So, are Hiya’s Bedtime Essentials the chartreuse (silver) bullet to achieve 100% bedtime routine harmony? Lol. I don’t think such a product exists (though if it does, please drop in the comments!).
What the supplement has accomplished for us is a key punctuation on dinner time, signaling the end of the day and starting the parade upstairs for bath. In an exchange that wouldn’t surprise Pavlov, producing the Bedtime Essentials bottle has resulted in my daughter popping the chewable in her mouth and then heading upstairs entirely without additional verbal instruction multiple times. What happens after we start bath is in the lap of the gods, but there’s no question that taking her chewable is something she has come to enjoy and expect as part of her nightly routine.
“There’s no question that taking her chewable is something she has come to enjoy and expect as part of her nightly routine.”
As to whether or not the quality of her sleep has improved, that’s hard to say. Kids are often visited by growth hormone in the night (we can always tell based on her glucose monitor, since this release interferes with her insulin), and all that hard work going on in their bodies often means once they’re out, they’re down for the count. The measure I can note is that since regularly taking the Bedtime Essentials, we’ve noticed that the nights when we have to wake her up to drink juice for a glucose drop have gone significantly smoother than before. Instead of fighting with her to wake up enough to drink (often resulting in a very stubborn tantrum to express her displeasure), the events have reminded me of dream feeds in our breastfeeding days of her babyhood: I simply put the straw in her mouth, and she peacefully drinks until I remove it, and then she utters a soft Night, night, mama before drifting back to sleep.
It’s not exactly a scientific study, but hey! It’s made a huge difference in our family.
THIS STORY IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH OUR FRIENDS ATÂ HIYA
Stephanie H. Fallon is a Contributing Editor at The Good Trade. She is a writer originally from Houston, Texas and holds an MFA from the Jackson Center of Creative Writing at Hollins University. She lives with her family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where she writes about motherhood, artmaking, and work culture. Since 2022, she has been reviewing sustainable home and lifestyle brands, fact-checking sustainability claims, and bringing her sharp editorial skills to every product review. Say hi on Instagram or on her website.
