If there is one thing that I really struggle with, it is sleep deprivation.
There has only been a handful of nights in Louis' life that has slept right through.
He has dreadful nightmares. Well, he wakes screaming and in distress and if I can calm him down enough to talk about it, the nightmares are usually about someone touching his stuff, or the fact that he saw a rooster on the letterbox. Pretty innocuous stuff, but don't tell that to the Lou man. So nightmares suck, because they wake him up and then it is awfully hard to get him back to sleep.
He also just wakes up. As in, who cares if it is 1am....it's play time!! These are the killers. Usually, these wakeups last for a few hours. The worst has been 10 pm to 7am. These decreased when the paediatrician took him off all vitamins. Even took him off formula because of the vitamins in it. He is seriously sensitive to vitamin B and it affects his ability to get back to sleep once he is awake. So we get a bit more sleep and check his blood levels to ensure he isn't suffering malnutrition (thanks to his AWESOME diet!).
We tried melatonin syrup. Yeah, worked like a few shots of vodka when it came to getting him to sleep but had no success in keeping him asleep. Getting Louis to sleep initially has never been too much of a problem, thanks to a bedtime routine run with military precision. Also, the melatonin caused MORE nightmares. So in the end we gave it up.
We have tried homoeopathics, weighted blankets, lights on, lights off, changed diet, massage, block out curtains, white noise machines and probably a million other things. I remember when he was about 3 and I was so desperate to sleep that I found myself looking up feng shui ideas to get the room in a sleepy arrangement. Nothing has worked.
Louis has seizure activity that has showed up on a sleep EEG. It occurs when he goes to sleep. We go back to the neurologist this month. No-one but me seems particularly concerned about it. According to the neurologist, most autistic kids have epileptiform acitivity on EEGs. However, he reviewed the EEG and decided that he needs to see Louis again. We will see where this goes in April.
As of this week, we can add night terrors to the mix. Oh what merry hell is this? For fuck's sake, is anything more freaky than a night terror? He is out of control screaming and freaking out. Can't console him like I usually can with a nightmare. He is sweaty and slippery and trying to rip his clothes off. Then he calms down and goes back to sleep. Meanwhile, I feel like I have tried to calm an electric eel on PCP. By the time my heart stops hammering it's way through my chest and I get back to sleep, Louis wakes up for party time.
My eyes are ringed like a panda and have bags like the scrotum of a meer cat.
How much longer is this going to go on for?
There has only been a handful of nights in Louis' life that has slept right through.
He has dreadful nightmares. Well, he wakes screaming and in distress and if I can calm him down enough to talk about it, the nightmares are usually about someone touching his stuff, or the fact that he saw a rooster on the letterbox. Pretty innocuous stuff, but don't tell that to the Lou man. So nightmares suck, because they wake him up and then it is awfully hard to get him back to sleep.
He also just wakes up. As in, who cares if it is 1am....it's play time!! These are the killers. Usually, these wakeups last for a few hours. The worst has been 10 pm to 7am. These decreased when the paediatrician took him off all vitamins. Even took him off formula because of the vitamins in it. He is seriously sensitive to vitamin B and it affects his ability to get back to sleep once he is awake. So we get a bit more sleep and check his blood levels to ensure he isn't suffering malnutrition (thanks to his AWESOME diet!).
We tried melatonin syrup. Yeah, worked like a few shots of vodka when it came to getting him to sleep but had no success in keeping him asleep. Getting Louis to sleep initially has never been too much of a problem, thanks to a bedtime routine run with military precision. Also, the melatonin caused MORE nightmares. So in the end we gave it up.
We have tried homoeopathics, weighted blankets, lights on, lights off, changed diet, massage, block out curtains, white noise machines and probably a million other things. I remember when he was about 3 and I was so desperate to sleep that I found myself looking up feng shui ideas to get the room in a sleepy arrangement. Nothing has worked.
Louis has seizure activity that has showed up on a sleep EEG. It occurs when he goes to sleep. We go back to the neurologist this month. No-one but me seems particularly concerned about it. According to the neurologist, most autistic kids have epileptiform acitivity on EEGs. However, he reviewed the EEG and decided that he needs to see Louis again. We will see where this goes in April.
As of this week, we can add night terrors to the mix. Oh what merry hell is this? For fuck's sake, is anything more freaky than a night terror? He is out of control screaming and freaking out. Can't console him like I usually can with a nightmare. He is sweaty and slippery and trying to rip his clothes off. Then he calms down and goes back to sleep. Meanwhile, I feel like I have tried to calm an electric eel on PCP. By the time my heart stops hammering it's way through my chest and I get back to sleep, Louis wakes up for party time.
My eyes are ringed like a panda and have bags like the scrotum of a meer cat.
How much longer is this going to go on for?
1 comment:
Ugh. Poor little guy. I hope the sleep issues get better for both of you.
Thanks for the meer cat scrotum image. Now I may not be able to get to sleep.
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