The statement 'I'm tired' is all relative to your life's current events. When I was in college I was tired because I partied to much. After a long day of work, a class full of Kindergarteners tired me out. Being a new Mom enduring countless nights of every 2 hour feedings would kicked my butt. Through all of those times I swore I was so tired. And that brings me to my latest and greatest saying of ' I'm exhausted!' Enter in the last month of Emersyn suffering from post surgery sleep stress. Plus, Dylan is beginning to have nightmares causing him to wake up crying. This combination can cause me to feel crazy. The kind of crazy exhaustion that coffee can't fix.
Dylan's nightmares are a random occurrence. We don't know what's suddenly causing them, but it's not fun. It happens once or twice a week and includes him waking up crying and not wanting to go back to sleep. Usually the parent not taking care of Emersyn helps Dylan get back to sleep. Sometimes this involves sleeping in his bed. Zack doesn't mind but I can't seem to get comfortable in his bed. Maybe it's the 10 stuffed animals he sleeps with! I've done some research on toddler dreaming and everything he is experiencing is normal. Unfortunately Dylan is a dreamer like me. I dream nightly and occasionally have nightmares. So I feel bad for him.
Now onto the little lady. Prior to surgery Emersyn was a great sleeper. She would go down at 9 and sleep until 4, when she would wake to feed. At most we'd get up once to pop her paci back in. I'd consider that sleeping through the night. Then she had surgery. We heard it was common for children to have sleep issues for 4-6 weeks after surgery. This is caused by many factors which I will get in to. But Emersyn is an extreme case. Aren't we lucky?!?! The first 2 nights home she slept well. We thought we were lucky. After that, the chaos began. On a good night Emersyn cries or screams out every 30-45 minutes. On a bad night, she cries out every 15 minutes. Those nights one of us sleeps on her floor because by the time we soothe her and climb back in bed, she's crying again. It saves us a trip. Now, she is crying with her eyes closed which is common for post surgery sleep stress. She has also lost the ability to self soothe so letting her cry it out doesn't work. She becomes louder and eventually goes into hysterics. We don't want her to wake up Dylan so we are cautious as to how long we let her cry. Emersyn has a set of lungs on her. Maybe she'll be a singer!!! Before I go on let me say that she does take naps without crying during the day. She takes cat naps anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. So the problem is only at night. This is actually much worse than a newborn. So after researching on a few Cranio websites, exchanging emails with a few moms whose child has gone through this, I finally resorted to contacting our neurosurgeon and pediatrician.
The pediatrician gave Emersyn a basic physical to make sure she was healthy. That she was. The neurosurgeon redirected me to the hospitals Child Life Team Specialist (CLTS). This persons job in the hospital is to assist the family in anything they need to help make the child comfortable
(radio, stuffed animals, etc) they also help ease worries of parents and assist families in understanding the basics about the hospital stay. While we didn't use this person much at the hospital, I thought she could help us now. We couldn't be the only family struggling right? So after a 45 minute chat with a CLTS things started make sense.
In general, people sleep different during the day than they do during the night. This explains why her sleep pattern is different at night. Next, many situations during her hospital visit have caused her stress or pain. Kids and adults can verbalized their fears but infants can't. During the hospital stay Emersyn was being poked and prodded frequently. Blood draws, IV bag changes, vital checks, incision checks, catheter adjustments, etc. And the sounds of every medical machine beeping. Most of this stuff was done to her when she couldn't see because of eye swelling. I don't know about you, but I would panic if I couldn't see what was going on and unfamiliar people were hurting me! In the PICU and in recovery the room was fairly dark. We kept it like this so she could sleep but also because her eyes were sensitive. Maybe that has something to do with it. So her night time crying out is part of the post sleep stress. Another factor is soothing. In the hospital she became paci dependent. Prior to surgery she could sleep without it. In the hospital we used it as a familiar item from home but also to soothe her during stressful times. Part of her cries at night are because her paci falls out. The moment we put it back into her mouth she settles.
The second soother was us. During the day we were both with her and at night we took turns. So for 5 days mommy and/or Daddy was with her 24 hours a day. I didn't realize how quickly a baby adjusts to human presence. Even though she couldn't see for a few days, she could hear us, feel us and smell us. She knew we were there even if we were sleeping. Call me crazy but it's true. If I sleep in her room, she cries significantly less! She senses me there I guess but I hate sleeping on the floor and I don't want to make a habit of that.
There are other factors but this post is getting long.
Our goal is to build her confidence and comfortability factor in sleeping alone at night. We are 5 1/2 weeks post op. We have bad nights and better nights. We are using suggestions from doctors, the child life specialist and other Cranio parents in working towards good or even great nights. At this point I have a strong feeling we are in for a long road and many more sleepless nights.
So Emersyn and Dylan are exhausting us a little :-) oh and I forgot.... The dogs! Sometimes they get confused with all the nightly hustle and bustle and decide they need to go outside to tinkle. Why not? More craziness added to the circus!
If you feel tired or exhausted just think of us. Or better yet, feel free to come over because we'll be awake. Bring some coffee... It can't hurt!
* it has taken me days to write this. I've been working on it during my sleepless moments. So if at any point it doesn't make sense, chalk it up to exhaustion!
I also shortened this post because I became tired of complaining. :-)
