Well, this has been an interesting week, shall we say....
I've been talking about the twin's sleep issues a fair amount lately.....well, the saga continues.....
Starting on Sunday night, Simon has begun sleeping through the night again. Every morning I would wake up and be fearful of what I may have slept through the previous night. I wasn't too worried because experience has told me that if there was something terrible, I wouldn't have slept through it. However, the 1-1.5 hours to fall asleep had returned.
Kevin will be traveling on business next week -- he's actually leaving tomorrow afternoon and will be gone the whole week. So, I've been panicking about how I was going to survive the week, especially with the minimal sleep that I've been getting lately. I asked other parents in the parent group I attend weekly if they've any experience with these behaviors and made an appointment to talk with our pediatrician. I received a lot of sympathy from the parents and once again "melatonin" was mentioned. So, Wednesday afternoon, I went to speak with our pediatrician (made an appointment to see her WITHOUT the kids).
I really want to emphasize how much I really like our pediatrician. I may have a problem or 2 with the practice, but she's great and very easy to talk to. I spent about 20-30 minutes discussing what things have been like lately and what I've tried, what I'm considering trying, and she was able to brainstorm with me a bit. Autism is not her area of expertise, and she freely admits it. But she is familiar with others who have the experience and had spoken to one of her colleagues on my behalf before this appointment (based on messages I'd left for her). At the end of the appointment, she was going to get back with me to give me the correct dose of melatonin, but warning me that it may or may not be the "magic bullet" that I'm desperately searching for. Well, she's definitely right about seeking that perfect solution and I have to admit I was slightly disappointed that she didn't feel that it would solve our problems. But, decided to try it anyway.
So, last night, we gave Simon a small dose of melatonin (250mcg). It took him about 45 minutes to fall asleep after putting him to bed. After 5 nights of sleeping through the night, I thought "Wow -- this may actually be the solution we've needed all this time". Well, at 4:30am, I hear that all-to-familiar-sound -- a loud one-person conversation -- Simon telling stories and playing some game in his room -- but this time I'm hearing him walking around the room rather than staying in bed. By the time Kevin went into his room about 5:45, Simon had woken up Rachel and Daniel (Kevin woke up when this started and I was already awake [don't ask]) and it feels like we're back to square one. But that was only the first night of using the melatonin.
So, we are trying again tonight. Writing this right now, it sounds like Simon is asleep (at least I haven't heard him in about 10 minutes) -- so it took him about 50 minutes to fall asleep after saying "Good Night". We'll see if we have more success tonight.
Let's hope that this solution will be what we've been looking for and that tonight will give us all a a good night. Being on my own next week is something that terrifies me since I won't have Kevin to fall back on when the stress starts to build. But if you read this blog regularly, you may expect to see a couple of aggravated, frustrated, or exhausted posts during the next week as I may be looking for an outlet...
Oh, for anyone for whom this counts, L'Shanah Tovah and Good Yom Tov!!!!!!
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