You're probably wondering where I've been lately. Well, I've been busy, accomplishing a little bit of nothing. Mainly just reinforcing my daughter's bad sleeping habits. We've been having quite a time of it lately, of sleeping. About a week ago, Chelsea decided she was going to get up multiple time in the night and come pay us a visit in the form of standing next to my bed, and taping me to wake me up. I'm a light sleeper, so I hear her as soon as her little feet hit the floor when she hops out of the crib.
We've associated these wakings with her cold, and with the sleeping while sitting up episode. Not following? Well, sleep apnea is common in kids w/ Down syndrome, and if you read my comments, you may have read that one of my blogging friends had some of the same issues w/ her little boy until they took out his tonsils. We're thinking she's just waking up as usual during the night, but b/c she's so mobile (and high energy) that she just pops up out of bed and decides it's time to get up. It doesn't really matter to her if it's 1am, 4am or 6am, when her eyes open, it's time!
We saw the pediatrician last week and he thinks she's a classic case ... and she'll need the surgery to have her tonsils and adenoids out. We can't get her in until Feb. 10 to the ENT, so in the mean time the dr. put her on flonase. He told us that's usually what they do anyways before making surgery decisions, so this way we're a step ahead. When we go to the ENT, we can say ... "this is Chelsea at her best." Then hopefully we can make some quick decisions about what she needs. I'll admit I'm a little apprehensive as I don't want to send her to surgery unless it's really necessary. Many kids do a sleep study before having the T&A (tonsil and adenoid) surgery, but our dr. didn't think it would be necessary and I think he was worried it might not work out very well with Chelsea and her age.
**Update: I began this post a couple of days ago. In order to help with any bad sleep habits, we reinforced her NOT getting out of bed last night. She's been giving Ryan quite a time in the evenings, so last night I put the baby gate up in her bedroom door so that when she got out of bed she couldn't leave her room. Her room is dark, so I knew there wouldn't be much in there she would want to do. I stayed in the basement watching housewives last night, and I heard her get up, holler for me, then it was silent. I waited a while to go check, but when I went upstairs, she had climbed up the chair, back into her crib and gone to sleep! Surprisingly, she slept the entire night through! We sooooo needed the sleep!
Hello world!
3 years ago
9 comments:
I hope you get more good night sleeps. Ashlyn has been on Flonase for about a month now and honestly I don't see any difference, hope it works for Chelsea.
Little stinker!!!
Ahh I hope it helps!!! Be SURE they keep her overnight after her T&A!
Well, Chelsea is a lot quicker than Olivia. Every few nights at about 1:30 I wake to a toddler standing by my side of the bed. So, we tried locking our bedroom door (she gets totally freaked out if her bedroom door is shut). She tried the door, it was locked and she then spent 46 minutes screaming and crying and trying to break our door down. It took everything Chad and I had to not give in. Colby didn't wake up. After that night, she did stay in her bed.... for a week. We still have nights where we have to take her back to her room. And let me tell you, I hate getting out of bed on cold nights. It is so hard to not just let her crawl into bed with us!!
OK, so we were scheduled for tonsil surgery, tucker is having much the same as Chelsea. We were also told, through a friend that has a son with DS, she took out the tonsils and immediately had relief of the sleep/congestion thing. She pushed me to keep on ENT. SOOOO, now we go and Tucker is junky and fighting yet another cold and since it is an elective surgery they felt we should wait. Tucker is close "to the best" that he can be during the winter months but...not 100%.
We see Dr Weatherly and he was going to do a sleep study after the tonsil surgery to check for apnea. He thought the tonsil surgery really needed to be done though, since we have had strep and ear infection..one right after another. Tucker sits up in his sleep as well, up and down all night...terrible sleep habits. he seems to sleep better during nap time then at bedtime.
I might ask about the flonase. No one has ever offered that suggestion to us. We had a steriod drop when we very first started with ENT to see if that didnt help, it helped his blocked tear duct (believe it or not) but not the congestion. I wonder if he cannot have it due to his heart condition, maybe that is why they havent issued it to us.
What a great idea and she didnt yell for long. Great it worked. Hope it stays that way.
Does it make me a bad person to giggle at the T&A surgery? No not that she has to have it, but what else T&A means!
Seriously, though, I hope it all goes well. My nephey (who does not have Ds) had that surgery when he was a child and it helped him so much. He was a very loud sleeper and my sister said he really didn't sleep well at night. Ever since the surgery he has slept better. He's now 15 years old.
P.S. I mailed my check in for the Mind your Marriage. Are you going?
Well I thought that the T&A would help Carson but now we aren't so sure. Carson aspirates so that is mostly his problem. When he had his large tonsils, he had a "backboard" for the food to hit before going down. Then when his tonsils came out, he choked worse. So that is where his feeding tube possible has come from. Of course there are other problems with him so we don't know. He is still not sleeping at night so I feel for you. I know how hard it is to try and funtion during the day when you are sleep deprived. I will send lots of prayers your way that Chelsea comes through it with flying colors.
Carey - when did she start getting out of her crib. Matty just started a few days ago. His falls are a bit dangerous and I'm worried about his safety but so nice ready to move him to a bed. Keep us posted on the sleep apnea. We did the T&A with Matthew when he was 15 months old. Two nights in the PICU and a pretty easy recovery. It wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. His sleep study came back as severe obstructive sleep apnea. Has Chelsea had a sleep study to get a baseline?
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