The Nightlife

Remember those care free days of a late dinner, night out with friends, sleeping in the next day...

Well those days are a very distant memory, as any parent would tell you. Now, dinner is early, bedtime for kids is usually a long drawn out process (not matter what you do when they are little); after the kids go to bed, you go to bed shortly after because you are wiped out, and the kids will be up bright and early the following morning and you have to start it all over again.

Our boys have always been pretty good sleepers (my mission in life was kids that napped and slept well). That is until lately.

First, lets talk about Brayden. He had been having difficultly going to sleep. Crying and screaming some nights for over an hour. The harder we tried to console him, the more agitated he got. We started him on a low dose of Melatonin (1.5 mg) a few months ago. Give it to him a little before bedtime and he would surrender to sleep rather than fighting it. The melatonin has been helping him go to sleep.

Well lately, he has been waking in the middle of the night. Many a nights it is because of a messy diaper. While it is impressive that he is fussing and crying because he has a dirty diaper (in fact amazing that he is letting us know he wants to be changed), his dirty diapers are an event. The diapers are explosive. Last night (2:00 a.m.) for example, required a full change of clothes, linens, diaper and a sponge bath. After he is clean, he goes right back to sleep.

However, most nights he has been waking a few times, screaming and crying. Jeremy and I both try to console him without much success but we try. We are going to add in another dose of Melatonin if he wakes in the night.

Then we have been told that Brayden has mild sleep apnea. After several hospital stays, the monitors were showing Brayden's oxygen saturation dips into the 80s. We did a sleep study and we finally saw the ENT doctor today. Brayden has tonsils that are a bit large but not something that would cause any major problems. He does not snore and those brief moments of apnea, he recovers on his own. The ENT doctor told us that we could try and have the surgery to remove the tonsils but with Brayden's level of neurological and other conditions (he has hypotonia) having the surgery would probably not make a significant difference. We are NOT putting him through surgery. We will monitor his sleeping at home. If it becomes an issue, he could have another sleep study and re-evaluate.

As if Brayden is not keeping us busy enough during the night, Luke has been sleep walking; starting sometime in December. We have found him, in the middle of the night, sitting in the family room...just sitting on the edge of the couch, in the dark. Or he wanders into our room mumbling something. One night, he went into Brayden's room, turned on his light, swiped one of Brayden's stuffed animals and put in by his own bedside. Another night I found him with two sets of pajamas on...the feet pajamas but his arms were in the feet and one leg was in the arm hole. He woke up that morning quite confused.

Last night, Luke was up and at it. He came into our room. We put him back in bed, he was up and in the bathroom. Finally he was back in bed to stay...then a couple of hours later was when Brayden needed a full changing.

Looking forward to bedtime tonight...it is party time here around the clock.