Sleep or lack there of

Posted by Francie Khalaf on 1st April 2020 Additional Needs, Advice & Support, Disabilities

Sleep. Oh, how I miss you.

Sleep. How I wish I could have you back.

It’s expected when having a baby, you will lose sleep. When you have twins, you expect to just not sleep. They prepare you to reach out for help and they prepare you to nap as much as possible. I wasn’t prepared for 4 years later to only sleep through the night once a week on average.

Sawyer is on a pulse ox at night due to his epilepsy. He also struggles anytime he has a cold causing his pulse ox to go off all night.

My daughter has been waking up every night for a year. She runs in our room and wants us to put her back to bed. This started when we switched her out of a crib, but we aren’t sure why this caused such a problem.

When we took her to the sleep doctor, I listed off everything we have tried and he said “it’s sounds like you’ve done everything”. Let’s try changing around her schedule with sleep regression and change her bedtime to 9:30. 9:30?!?!?!?! Is he insane?

I already feel like I’m dragging through the day with zero time to myself, now I am losing that blissful hour before bed to read or go to bed early? Well, we tried it and meticulously logged her sleep patterns and times she woke up. Nothing worked and almost a year later she is still waking up at night. His final suggestion was anxiety medicine.

We decided to forgo the anxiety meds and deal with the lack of sleep.

Although sleep is lacking in this house, we know it isn’t permanent. At least that is what we are telling ourselves. HAHA! When our daughter wakes us up, we take the time to tell her we love her and give her a kiss. We smile and act as though it isn’t a big deal because some day, in the near future, she will be kicking us out of her room so she can talk to boys.

Sawyer will likely always be on a pulse ox, but he won’t always be so willing to snuggle in the middle of the night. My new motto, especially in times like this is

“Embrace it. It won’t last forever.”