An unclear pattern

Having a child with an erratic sleep pattern is a long cause of stress in our lives. His problem here is night waking, in which a couple of hours after he does fall asleep, he wakes up babbling. He does not leave his bedroom or cry out in distress but continues the monologue of whatever show is happening in his head.

The longer this happens the more we hear people ask if he's on medication. He's not on anything, he's twelve and I'm reluctant to put a child going through puberty on barbiturates. We have tried melotonin, even though the opinions of so called experts differ. When he takes melotonin, he falls asleep quicker, say at 10PM but wakes up about four hours later. At his mother's house, he does not fall asleep until much later, say about 1AM, but he sleeps though the night afterwards.

So what is the trade off?

The past two nights we did not give him any melotonin. Friday he fell asleep at about 10:30. and as far as we know did not wake up in the night. I woke him around 8AM and he was still trying to go back to sleep after he ate his breakfast.

Last night he did not fall asleep until about 11:30 and my wife heard him talking to himself briefly around 3:30. Then he woke himself up just after 7AM.

Two nights is not enough to make an assessment, and my son is certainly not giving his opinion or reasons for his sleep difficulties. Every night is different with little consistency. It's another one of the many challenges parents of autistic children can face, every day.

Sucky next 38 hours

After too many nights of interrupted sleep caused by my son not sleeping through the night we've decided to try something new. When he was much younger and had the same problem we tried melotonin and it had a reverse effect. This was at least eight or nine years ago. Tonight we slipped some liquid melotonin in with his pudding. Not sure what the results will be but he was not interested in drinking the milk we put it in last night - where he went to bed around 10PM and woke up about six, which for him is a good night.

So he's lying on the couch right now, which is normal for him. When he falls asleep and whether or not he sleeps through the night is now the question.

This was also one of those days I'm not sure if he understands what is happening. I drove him up to his new school and explained to him that he is going to be going here soon, that it is his new school and that it's going to be like his old one but different too. His response was to put his hands over his ears, which is a newer thing of his to do. We have a soon to be twelve year old surly teenager.

Not sure if my blood pressure is dropping the way my doctor would like. I'm on two medications for it now. Monday I'm undergoing a medical procedure which means I can't eat any solid food tomorrow and have to purge the system, as it were.

When my two older brothers hit fifty and develop cancer means I have to be vigilant, hence the procedure. Who knows when my genetic switch will activate?

In the time I took to write this, his eyes are closing, and he's out. Not sure if it's the melotonin or not.

Now if the idiots in my neighborhood would stop shooting off fireworks it can be even quieter around here.