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JAM's Own Reality
JAM's Own Reality
Isn't this such a sweet sight? Cole passed out from playing in his jumper.
I think we have forgotten what this IS exactly! It is apparently fairly common for children with Cerebral Palsy to have trouble sleeping...Or so I've been told. I've not researched it extensively, it is obvious that Cole definitely has trouble.
Cole has trouble with self-soothing, so when he wakes in the middle of the night (several times a night), he can not soothe himself back to sleep.
On a typical night he would only sleep about three hours, wake and fight his sleep for about 45 minutes to an hour with me trying to help him get back to sleep, then start all over.
We have tried about five or six different medications to help him sleep. These would usually help him sleep around five hours versus the three. Every medication seemed to work in the beginning for a while but then he would be back to waking all the time again. We would increase the dose and would get a little sleep for a short time until we would just have to try another.
There have been some medications that seem to upset his stomach, or so we thought. It is always just a guessing game, all trial and error. When taking these meds to help, when he woke up he would just scream, like he was in pain.
I don't want to jinx him but for the most part, other than if he has a cold, constipated or anything else that just makes him uncomfortable, he has been doing real well on this most recent medication of Amitriptyline HCL.
We have had a few nights with NO sleep (ok, two hours) but that was due to constipation not medication or just not sleeping. Hopefully this medication will continue to work for him.
