Sleeping - or rather, NOT sleeping has been something Alexander's had problems with since he was about 1.5 years old. We've tried doing a proper schedule/routine, exercise, and all that. I've read books about "child sleep hygiene", and come to accept that although the information was good, no amount of routines will put Alexander to sleep. I know many kids like Alexander suffer from sleep problems, and I am sure it doesn't help that insomnia seems to be in my family. I have insomnia, and my brother and mom suffer from it too.
By this fall, when surgery had cured his sleep-apnea, but not his insomnia, I had given up on really trying, since all it did was stress me out, which would make me snap at Alexander when it was midnight and he was still awake. Our new rule was to try for "good bedtimes", even if they might not include any actual sleep. I would give Alexander a sticker for a good bedtime if he did not argue when it was time for bed, and if he quietly tried to sleep, even if it might not work. I often sat in the room with him to help him relax and wind down.
I realized he did not understand what relax meant, when I told him to relax for 20 minutes, and he kept asking me to start over because he'd accidentally taken a breath or scratched something or moved. Now, try to imagine the fun in trying to explain what "relaxing" actually means to someone with a somewhat limited understanding of language and a highly limited understanding of what I tend to call "concepts". After weeks of failing at "relaxing", I finally managed to show him what it meant by cuddling and rocking him, while telling him what to think about. So now, what he does is he goes to bed and "thinks", which is the closest we can get to proper relaxation. I love hearing about his great plans, including how when he is 20 years old, in the afternoon, his dad and he will go downtown and find a beautiful girl for him to marry. When I asked why I couldn't come, I was told that the beautiful girl might think he was already married. My job while they go downtown will be to buy a house with a room for him to make cages for snakes. I love his little mind!!
In October of this year, one of the things that came out of the neuropsychology rapport was that he had a severe delay in development of executive functions, and ADHD. So after talking with his pediatrician, we decided to start medication to see if it would make a difference in school. Alexander's first day on medications was the very first time in his 7.5 year life that he had a proper conversation with his dad. We were baffled! He was actually chattier on the medication, and less upset in school, so everyone who knows the "before" and "after" Alexander agree that he must have that medication. Since ADHD meds are stimulants, they often affect sleep negatively. On his new meds, Alexander could not fall asleep before 3am, so very soon after, we started giving him Clonidine for sleep, which is also fairly common in the treatment of ADHD.
Within weeks of starting the medication, his teacher, myself and his resource teacher at school all noticed that he was becoming what we called "OCD-ish". We are not sure if it was some reaction to the drug, or if maybe now that he could think more clearly - if it was something that might have been there all along. After another meeting with his doctor, since sleep was still an issue, she increased the Clonidine to help him sleep, and also because it might work to decrease his OCD behavior. That was right before Christmas. On Boxing day as I was putting him to bed I noticed him staring at the ceiling. He told me there were spiders there, so I turned on the light to show him there were none, and left the room. A little while later he called me in, and I could see he was frightened. It turns out he was seeing spiders all over the ceiling (hallucinating), and even at times brushing them off himself. Since he is so "young" and has a trusting relationship with me, he believed me when I told him that his mind was playing a trick on him, and that it was almost like a spider TV show inside his head. By 5am, I called Health Links, and they told us he had to go to the hospital for an assessment immediately. Long story short, they think it was all from the Clonidine. After sleeping only every other night since then, this week he started a new, more heavy hitting medication called Trazodone. I am feeling cautiously optimistic that maybe he'll get more rest, and that it might help his development both at school and at home.
Hopefully, with sleep "taken care of", we can move on and work toward bigger and better things! :)
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