Loudon: Mom, I’m emerging from my bee-hive! Shhh! You’ll disturb the Queen! She needs her SLEEP!
5-htpee your pants with nightmares! January 8, 2009
I love a natural alternative for something that’s ailing you. When Ro got his diagnosis at 16 months, I started researching like a Mad-Mama on crack for anything and everything that would help with some of the digestive problems that he was having – a common problem for many on the spectrum.
We found natural alternatives to prescription medicine for constipation, runny poopies, gas, yeast, thrush and everything else under the sun that your gut might be suffering from. See my post on coconut and kombucha for two of our favorites that we still use.
After we got Ronan moving (so to speak) with that issue, I resolved to tackle the sleep deprivation that we all were suffering from – another ASD commonality.
We tried magnesium citrate, which is supposed to calm one down, but instead, Ro bounced off the walls well into the wee hours of the morning. We tried melatonin, and this worked at first, but then it wore off after an hour or so of sleep, and Ro was whiny and grumpy the next day.
I got the advice to try 5-htp, an amino acid that supposedly boosts serotonin without all of the nasty SSRI side effects. I was too afraid to give it to Ro, but I filed it away for future possibilities anyway.
I have been reading more about it this disgusting winter, because I have a nice little case of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) going on. Hmm, 5-htp might help with this, AND it’s reported to help with appetite suppression and sleep, too! Mama likey!
I went to Whole Foods yesterday and bought some. Last night before bed, I took a small dose. I had a nice night with the boys, and we all fell asleep peacefully. A short time later, I was awoken by SATAN hovering over me. No, it wasn’t Ro or Lowie having a night terror, it was the actual SATAN with horns and hooves, sitting on my chest and bellowing demonic things into my face.
After a couple of horrifying minutes of crying desperately for someone to help me, I woke up in a sweat with my heart racing. Ok, it was just a nightmare – the most vivid and terrifying one I’ve ever had, but still, a nightmare. Babies were okay, so I went back to sleep.
A few minutes later, I was being chased by a very angry Indian dwarf, whose one very insistent goal in life was to kick me repeatedly in the shins. No idea what I did to him, but it was not good.
After I outran the pissed-off small person, I was bombed in Target by KGB agents in giant bug-like helicopters, got stuck in a basement with 10,000 blood-sucking “Food of the Gods” size ticks, lost Ronan and Loudon repeatedly in a maze of gray hallways, and for the grand finale, my mother’s ghost, complete with fangs and yellow eyes, crawled out of my bathtub “The Ring” style.
Hmm, Mama missed the little section that listed nightmares as one of the brief side-effects that should improve within a week or so. They suggest lowering the dose if you experience vivid dreams.
I guess Mama needs to lower the dose tonight.
If I make it through without heart failure, I’ll let you know who tries to kill me tonight in the morning. If it actually works to help with bitchy, Winter-hating Mamas who have to lose a few pounds, it might be worth a few nights of visits from El Diablo!!
Try it, if you dare!!!!
For the love of God! When will this child sleep?! February 2, 2008
The first night he was born, the nurses kept bringing Ronan into my room.
“He won’t stop crying. Sorry, hon. Maybe you should try to nurse him again.”
This went on only every ten minutes or so, until I just said, “Oh, alright already! Just sleep in my bed with me!”
Thus began a new circle of life for Robyn and Brian, parents of “The Baby Who Never Sleeps.”
Ditties (the nickname for my boobies), sleep. Remove ditties, wake up. Ditties, sleep. Remove ditties, wake up…and on and on and on. This lovely cycle was broken up by intermitten hours of filming infant Ronan, with one of those old clunky cassette video recorders, propped up on the couch at various times in the a.m., when only bats, owls and other nocturnal animals roam the earth.
I began to look like one of them. My eyes were black-rimmed, I was in a zombie-like daze - walking into walls and forgetting proper hygene (like actually washing myself), and I was obsessed with finding ways to get him to actually sleep without being attached to the ditty.
The Ferber Method = cry until vomit, then cry more. Never stop crying. Vomit. Cry.
Daddy walking and rocking, then slipping Ronan quitely into his crib = bolting upright in 0.001 second flat. Screaming. Vomiting.
The No Cry Sleep Solution = Ha Ha Ha Ha, yeah right.
For two years, I just caved and gave the ditty. I learned how to sleep like a fugitive in an escape tunnel, one arm had to curl around the top of his head. Ditty had to be fully accessible. Pillows were aplenty, and positioned just so, to support my frozen frame. As long as I didn’t move – at all- Ronan would sleep, nurse, sleep, nurse, and maybe some nights, he wouldn’t wake up for his 4 hour a.m. stretch.
When I finally decided to wean him (at over 2 years old - that’s another post in itself), a new cycle began in the life of Robyn and Brian.
It was called, “The Child Who Never Sleeps”
Snuggle with Ronan in his bed until he falls asleep. Wrench your body out from under his digging feet at 1 cm. an hour. Finally get out of the bed. Lay in your own bed. Roll over to finally sleep and immediately see a small figure hovering over you.
Walk back into child’s room. Repeat. 4 nights out of the week, shoot footage of owl-child awake with brand new digital camcorder.
Flash 5 years forward, and we are still walking Nosferatu back and forth to his bed. Still zombies.
Everything from melatonin, vigorous exercise, magnesium, joint compression, and a trillion other things have been tried.
I have pretty much resigned myself to the idea of being an old zombie. Then we’ll call him …
“The Man Who Never Sleeps”
Feel free to send me your suggestions, please, for the love of GOD!
P.S. Don’t let this picture fool you! I tried to trick him up by putting his little brother beside him to snuggle…maybe they’ll find comfort cuddling each other, and he won’t come looking for me!
Yeah, right. 5 minutes after I took this picture, he was hovering over me…THE CHILD WHO NEVER SLEEPS!!!!!
