I survived the sleep specialist yesterday.
It was the typical story when I try to get an early morning appointment so Elli doesn't miss an entire day of school. We were the 2nd appt of the day, and the first one started late. We started half an hour late, and then went over our 1-hour allottment because Elli's story isn't a quick one.
All in all, I walked away with mixed feelings.
The good news is that everything we are doing is good. We have a consistent, regular bedtime. We have a bedtime routine. We put each child to bed in their bed, and they have learned to fall asleep on their own in that bed. They don't fall asleep to the TV or to music or anything else that will eventually shut off (this can cause middle-of-the-night waking and inability to get back to sleep because the sleep environment changed and isn't the way it was when they normally fall asleep).
The bad news is that there really isn't much else we can try. He had only two suggestions, and they have no guarantee of making any difference in her ability to get back to sleep after waking.
He recommended, after looking at her sleep diary, that we push her bedtime back half an hour. He said she may not be physiologically ready for sleep at 8pm, so if we put her down at 8:30, that should, in theory, reduce the time she lays in bed awake. I like to spend some time with her at night anyway, so we'll do the normal bedtime routine, and then when the other two go to bed, I'll take her out to the family room with me and hang out for a half hour until 8:30.
Elli was all in favor of this development, of course. How many times does a doctor tell you that you are going to bed too early, after all!? She had a ball watching American Idol auditions last night, kicking and giggling at the awful singing and listening very carefully to the good stuff. We really enjoyed spending that time together, Elli and her dad and I, laughing and snuggling. I think this is going to be a great development for all of us. I've really missed her this year, now that she's at school all day. So this evening time is reallly special for all three of us.
The other suggestion is to wait a good hour when she wakes at night. He really wanted us to give her a long chance to go back to sleep herself before we go in to her room. He suspects that those nights she wakes early she just got enough sleep and is ready to go for the day. If she is sitll awake after an hour, then go in and tell her she needs to be quiet when she's the first one up and move her somewhere else if necessary. He said at that point, she isn't likely to return to sleep, so moving her wouldn't be counterproductive, though he said not to turn on lights and music and all that either. This would just reinforce to her body that 4am is a fine time to get up!
So my worst fears were not realized -- he said we're doing a great job with her. He also said that on the whole, if the 3 weeks we tracked are a good snapshot of reality, she is really only waking up in the night once a week. That isn't bad enough to indicate a medical problem (which is good!). I also suspect that two of the 3 wakings she had were because she was coming down with a cold. I think she had a sore throat that woke her. So I think I'm going to try giving her Tylenol when I move her out of her bedroom in the future -- if her throat hurts, maybe getting some relief would help her get some sleep after all. And if not, Tylenol once a week for no reason isn't going to hurt her.
But we didn't get any magic bullets either. We're basically stuck with the situation as it is. I guess God really wants me to get better at handling stress in the middle of the night when I'm tired and groggy and extra-specially impatient!
