Missing Sleep

October 5, 2017

So, turns out Bradley is not a sleeper.  Or maybe I should say that he is not a sleeper when I am a sleeper.  Or maybe, he just can't continuously sleep through the night.  Point is, there are very few nights where he sleeps.  We'll start out great, and he'll sleep for a good five hours, but then he is up walking through his bedroom and into ours.  And I would be totally willing to let him sleep in between Eric and I, if only he would sleep.  Problem is, he wants to practice every yoga/pretzel type move that has ever been created, mostly with his eyes still closed.  So I pick him up and put him back to bed.  The first time, he settles back into his bed and goes back to sleep pretty quickly.  Then he'll be back and at it again, but this time his eyes are partly open and it will take longer to settle him in his bed again.  And if it happens again, and again...the time gets longer and longer for him to settle down to sleep.

We have tried so many things to help him at night, and some will help for a little while and then it won't.  I can lay beside him one night and he's out, but then the next night he is not interested in that, and instead I sit at the end of his bed and ignore the behavior and he'll settle down, one night it turns out he just needs to be held, one night it's a blanket, one night it's not, one night it's the weighted blanket and the next it's not, one night I sit by his bed, one night on it, one night falling asleep curled up at the bottom of his bed because I can't keep my head up and threaten to break my glasses.

I don't know that this is about the behavior with him.  I don't think that he is trying to be a pain or that he is choosing to be up all night on purpose.  If it were just behavior we could work with that.  I could make a call to start a process to have a Therapist hired to come in and work with Bradley; likely every day, for an hour or two at a time.  If we had too, we would.  But only if we had too.  It's incredibly difficult to allow someone into your home every day, every week...for an hour or two...etc. Oh my gosh!  I try to keep my house clean, but there are days it defeats me.  We have two cats and a dog; the hair alone is a daily assault, and if you miss a day...good grief, you might as well attach a battery to it, give it a charge and let it free in the yard!  Yikes.  And then there is the bathrooms and the vacuuming and the general cleaning.  And then forget teaching the girls about chores and responsibility, that's out the window completely.  By the time they are home from school the therapist is either here, or is gone...so the dishes already had to be done and the backyard had to be cleared of dog poop just in case; God forbid, they want to take him outside for play or therapy or whatever.

That's the price you pay for having therapists coming in to work with your kiddo.  And it's not like Mom gets a break to go read a book or something, nope.  Mom has to be somewhere near in order to be sure she is learning this new way to handle behaviors, etc.  So then you have a therapist that is grading how you are doing as you learn something new, or continue to try to implement a new technique.  Good times had by all.  We've been lucky on a few fronts.  One, we've mostly had really sweet and genuine therapist come to work with Bradley.  And also, if you can call it good - this is not a behavior instance.  All the well meaning therapy in the world isn't the answer to this.

For Bradley, we are fairly certain this is all connected to activity in his esophagus and/or his brain.  When there is lots of reflux, everything burns and that keeps him awake.  When he is refluxing even more he can wake up gagging and retching, and that not only burns but it scares the Hell out of him.  But who can blame him?  It scares me too.  And then there is the activity in his brain.  Bradley is still categorized as having Epilepsy.  When he sleeps his brains has a lot of seizure spiking activity.  His anti-seizure medication keeps him from having a full seizure, but it doesn't prevent him from having these spikes.  All that activity can cause headache and irritability.  I keep him flush in Vitamin Water because I can infuse his cranky mood with lots of B6 and rumor is that will help.  For the most part, I think it does help him.  Is it the B vitamins or is it the yummy flavor?  Not sure, but he keeps drinking it so I'll take it!  Some nights everything is so bothersome for him I will give him Tylenol or Motrin, because I know that sometimes the headaches can be really bad.

Some nights I sit in his room and wonder if I will be sitting in his room by his bed settling him back down to sleep in another ten years, or twenty, or for the rest of my life?  I'm not going to lie, those are my roughest days, when I look into a future of this potential never ending Groundhog Day scenario, and I get frustrated and feel defeated.  Oddly, these feelings go away by morning or one good night's sleep later and I feel so much better.  Goes to show you how important sleep truly is.  Or perhaps how much sleep is my kryptonite.  Either way, on most days, after the kids are off to school and the house is quiet save for me, the animals, and the crazy old neighbor lady that haunts the neighborhood peeking in windows and constantly knocking on my door...I try to get a nap in and catch up and the sleep that is lost.  Some days it's just daunting.  

Tonight, he made it a whole two hours and is was back out here snuggled on Dad's lap going back to sleep.   Given our first Volleyball game of the Season was tonight (a win for the middle School sister's team), I guess it makes sense that he has a hard time easing out of that again.  Poor guy!  Anyway, off to try to get him settled into his bed for the second; though probably not the last time  tonight.  

Pleasant dreams all, now you understand the Challenge part of the 31 for 21 Blog Challenge.  If it were easy it wouldn't be parenting!