Week #2

So it's been more than a week of The Plan, including a trip that required changing time zones and sleeping in a trundle bed.

The Plan, as you'll recall involved a combo of medical and behavioral tinkering:

• iron supplementation (30 mg/daily)
• prilosec
• new sippy cup for night

The upshot of all this is he is eating like a fiend, so I'm not sure if he really wasn't feeling great before or what (he was taking in only 50ish calories/night, so that's not a major loss), and only waking once in the middle of the night, generally in the 3-5 window, at which point he's coming into my bed (he's asking me to sit in the rocking chair, and that is not going to happen).

So this is pretty excellent.  Not perfect, but reasonable.

Night #6

Wow...almost a whole week.

Another nap.  Alas.  Bedtime 9:00ish.  Woke at some point early morning (4:00?) and came in with me, which seems to be the 'baba mulk' alternative.  I'm okay with that for the moment, as long as he's able to go right back to sleep.  Up for the day around 7:00.

So the GOOD is that the most he's woken in a single night since starting prilosec is twice.  Given that he was waking up to five times, that's progress.  On the behavior front, he's drinking much less at the beginning of the night, and not drinking at all through the night.

Now if I would just stop waking on my own, we might be getting somewhere...

Night #5

Well of course it was too easy.

Yesterday he took a nap again.  Fell asleep at 9:00.

Woke up around 2:00.  Cried for 'baba mulk.'  Was awake for a full hour.

I was awake for one more.

He woke up again aroun 5;00.

Up for the day (late) at 7:30.

Night #4

Asleep by 7:45.  One waking at maybe 1:30, minimal fussing.  No request for bottles or drinks of any kind.

Woke up for the day just before 7:00.

Yahoo!

Night #3

He took an unexpected nap at daycare (he's napped maybe three times in the past month?).  This meant I was prepared for a later bedtime.  It went later than I would have liked (I sat in the rocker for 45 minutes) but not completely insane:  9:00.

I woke up at 4:00 and hadn't heard a peep.  He woke up maybe half an hour later, so I spent the 4-5 hour awake.  He came into my bed and up for the day at 6:30.  So not a lot of sleep (that's 10.5 hrs in a 24 hr period, which is more like an older child than a 3 year old).  But only one request for milk, and when I reminded him it had to be in a sippy, he didn't want it.  Definitely getting easier on that score, but I'll give it a few days before I describe this as a TREND.

*

I have a call in to the sleep clinic because one of the totally amateur observations I made is that most of his moments of central apnea (for those of you who don't know, that's not the same as the OSA people have when they snore; it's a brain glitch that doesn't send a signal to breathe) occurred during REM sleep.  And if numbers on the internet are any indication...he gets less REM sleep than most ADULTS.  I sort of unscientifically wonder if that's a self-protective mechanism?  Like, he stops breathing during REM sleep so doesn't get much of it?  Like I said, totally unscientific but I'm going to ask about it.

Night #2

(FWIW, I don't plan on recording our nights until the end of time.  For now, some record keeping...)

Bedtime was later than I would have liked as we were out with friends.  Tiny Boy was fine while we were there (we left at 7:20) but by the time we got home was meltdown boy.  Immediately did an abbreviated night routine (we only did one story) and got him in bed w/melatonin.  I thought he was out by 8:00 and left his bedroom--if I didn't mention this, the doctors encouraged me to sit in the room with him, which we'd been doing for a while, to cut down on bedroom antics--only to be called back.  He was out for good by 8:20.

Observations:  he's definitely squirrely, particularly in the legs.  But as soon as he stops moving he's OUT.  He doesn't spend time with his eyes closed relaxing.

He woke at maybe 3:00.  Cried for his 'baba.'  Maybe this lasted fifteen minutes.  Went to sleep. Repeat around 5:00, though at this point he was more upset, he said his belly hurt, and I said the choices were drink from a cup or come into my bed but I was going back to sleep.  We snuggled up and slept until about 7:30.

I'm guessing he'll keep asking for the bottle for at least a few more days.  But if this continues, I'll definitely call it progress.

And I had to have a talk with myself that the goal here is not to get him to sleep through the night without any interruption (though that would be awesome) but to minimize the wake ups that disrupt both our sleep.  If we can get that down to 1-2, instead of 2-5, I'll be a really happy girl.  The problem is I've been pressured on all sides...can't go to bed early, can't sleep late, woken frequently in the middle of the night.  Last night softened all those pressures to an extent.

Night #1

Last night was the first night to implement the new plan (though we didn't start prilosec until this morning, as timing all these supplements is fairly complicated).  Could have been better, could have been much worse.

LG came home from camp yesterday, so I expected bed time antics.  The biggest problem giving up his night drinking is that it's the delivery system he desires.  I've tried in the past buying all kinds of different cups but what he wants is the bottle (and before you tell me he's three he shouldn't have a bottle, that's sort of pointless...the fact is he does).  Conveniently we have a new baby cousin; I asked Tiny Boy if he wanted to perhaps give the bottles to the baby in exchange for a new stuffed animal to sleep with.  Everything was great with this plan during the day.

At bedtime there was some protesting, but he drank usual rice milk in sippy cup while we read stories.  I gave him melatonin, as the sleep doctor had suggested, to minimize the DRAMA at bedtime.  Sat in the rocking chair, reminded him to close his eyes, etc (he moves around and kicks A LOT in bed, and the doctor seems to think this will stop once his iron is up) and bam, twenty minutes later had a sleeping kid.  Yahoo.

Not a peep out of him until 1:30 in the morning (which was 6 hrs after he went to sleep, so that's great).  But then it was crying and whimpering and crying and begging for the bottle and being scared of the bedroom.  He finally came into my bed and fell asleep around 3:30.  I feel like maybe he woke around 6:00 but I'm not sure and up for the day at 7:00.

If that's the worst of it, we'll be okay.  But this is not something I can continue for more than a few days, and certainly not the month it took when we tried CIO at the beginning of the night when he was an infant.  The only reason I was able to fall asleep at all was self-medicating on top of the lunesta I usually take...and that's not good for me and now I'm both exhausted and druggy.

Clearly coming into my bed is not ideal and might set us up for another habit to break later.  But one step at a time.