Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Sleep- a beautiful thing

Sleep has been a problem here for a while. I've always been a night owl and even now I'm blogging at 11pm. Lately though I've been pushed to my limit. Miss A is not sleeping and as such she ceases to function during the day. A month or so ago we hit the low. Her behaviour was hitting the rocks and it was showing in all areas even at kindy. So her occupational therapist and social worker decided it was time to step in. A was seen by the sleep specialist and steps were taken to figure out what was causing the lack of sleep.
The first part of the study was for A to wear an Actiwatch for a week 24/7. It has a light monitor and it monitors her movement. The results came back showing she has 11 hours of no movement a night except for when she wakes up to come and see me.
The problem there is everyone could see in her face she wasn't sleeping. Blue and purple shadows under her eyes and large puffy bags.
So where to now? The OT wants to get a proper sleep study done at the hospital. Not a nice step as it involves lots of monitors and wires but an important one. If she isn't getting quality sleep or something is keeping her awake we need to know. At her age it affects her development and when you ate already behind that has a huge impact.

No comments:

Post a Comment