Thursday, February 28, 2013

Sleep specialist and a 7 year old

I took Big M to a pediatric sleep specialist last week, 3-hours south. Why we have to drive so far, I have no idea. Little M's gastroenterologist is 2.5 hrs away.

I explained to doctor Big M's sleep issue and after a long talk, I didn't really have an aha moment. Daddy didn't have that moment either after I relayed what happened with our visit. Big M takes at least 2 hours to fall asleep, sleeps lightly and wakes up several times a night and sometimes he stays awake for an hot or longer. He has night terrors frequently. As a result he is always tired and it is affecting his behavior, it affects his learning, and his emotional state. We've been trying to cope with a very low dose melatonin, but he is still barely getting enough rest.

The specialist seemed to hone in on his night terror. She said that the night terror could be the culprit and is waking him up and because he isn't getting enough sleep it is making him more prone to even more/worse night terror. That made sense to me even though I don't believe that it is the root cause of his problem.

Ever since Big M was an infant, he is a light sleeper. I have to rock him for him to fall asleep. Then we had to lay with him for him to fall asleep. Daddy and I remember that at 1-2 yrs old we had to be in constant contact with him in bed. We learned to inch away a little at a time so that we could sneak out at night, only for him to extend his arm or leg so that he could keep touching us - when we were pretty sure after 1 hour that he was already sleep. It makes sense now, that he probably wasn't sleep because it took him very long to fall asleep.

We have no answers yet and we don't expect to, not until the actual sleep study. We are going to get called by the sleep lab within the next week or so to set up an appointment . Daddy will be with him , for the over night stay. Hopefully then we would know why Big M has such a hard time sleeping.

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