Oh Em Gee. Sleep Please!

[annuin]

So, we finally have Dashiell in something resembling a normal sleeping pattern (third night in a row where he's gone to bed somewhere between 8-9pm and slept til 5-6am, for him a *huge* deal), and then Matilda just gets worse and worse. She just pulled an all-nighter, pretty much. Well she had one or two of those <10 minute micro naps, which amped her up completely, but obviously doesn't do much for me beyond make me extremely frustrated.

I just canceled and rescheduled the tour of the school that I was going to go visit later, because I honestly don't think it's going to be a good idea to get in the car in an hour and drive around after not having slept yet, and having slept poorly yesterday.

Currently she's calmer, as I put her in her seat in front of the tv for a few minutes, so she's watching PBS/Sprout. It seems to be distracting her, which is good, because she was bouncing off the walls not 5 minutes earlier and driving me to the point of wanting to scream.

If I'm really lucky, she'll pass out within the next 5-10 minutes. *sigh*

Comments

[anachronaut.livejournal.com]

5th Element sleep chambers!

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

:D

I would kill for one of those!

How are you?

[anachronaut.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty good.. the usual, work, stress, etc...

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Nearing the end later this year? or still a ways to go?

[anachronaut.livejournal.com]

a bit more then a month.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

That's not too bad then.

My brother's finishing up his degree this month too.

[notagod.livejournal.com]

Shot in the dark, have you considered her diet?

I know that adelaide reacts like she's on speed to a large amount of the 200 range of preservatives. Especially the propionites (found in bread, 282 mostly), and the sulfites (used as preservative in so much stuff).

Another side effect Adelaide shows apart from the manicness is also impulse control issues, which yeah, doesn't help in the very young.

http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/ <- great source of information.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

She's still breastfed, so that makes up a decent portion of her nutrition. She drinks some cow milk occasionally, but not much at all or with any real regularity.

Besides that she gets pureed fruits/vegetables (because she mooches what we feed Dash), often of the natural/organic baby food brands.

I nearly always have organic bread, because I really dislike a lot of the regular store breads here, laden with corn syrup and other stuff.

She'll eat some of the foods that we have for dinner, and when we do have pre-packaged/convenience foods, I do try and keep those to varieties that are "natural" aren't laden with preservatives as much as I can.

She just got really out of whack with sleeping after being sick a couple weeks ago, same with Dashiell (he had the flu and barely moved at all for a week he was so out of it, and she got sick also, but not as badly). So currently she's in a schedule where she's awake more at night and sleeping more during the day. Reverse cycle. Daylight savings the other week didn't help at all either.

What's frustrating is that when I went to the pediatrician a while ago asking if there was any way to help Dash get cycled back into a normal day-night routine, I basically got the "cry it out" answer. Besides being a totally useless answer that doesn't solve anything but make everyone be awake and frustrated, it's also annoying, given that if you go to a doctor as an adult and explain you have issues with sleep, they hand you fistfuls of tablets to help you quickly sort things out.

Not that I would want to really do that to a child, but something that would have helped him get a routine sorted a little faster would have been nice, instead of weeks and weeks of frustration and sleeplessness and broken nights. And hell, any kind of more supportive answer from the doctor would have been nice really.

I found a post on a special needs forum that was something about a bath routine that helped that person's child become more organised and even deal with some of their constipation issues just by virtue of daily baths with epsom salt (and I think lavender oil too) which help with processing toxins and such. I think her child had some sensory issues, which Dashiell also has.

But yeah, it's all rather frustrating at times, and often you can't get any real sensible response that doesn't just revolve around "stick them in their room, let them cry".

[notagod.livejournal.com]

basically got the "cry it out" answer Yeah, I'd get a second/third/fifth opinion :)

Good luck with it. *chuckles* I'm still trying to get G to sleep solidly through the night, so I kinda know the feeling of sheer exhaustion.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thanks for the link! Even for kids who don't bounce off the walls with preservatives, I think it's good stuff to know anyway.