Uninterrupted sleep please!

Things back to the old routine.

Girls back in school, Brian back at work, me and Ty home, behaviorists coming over as usual. Back to a regular predictable schedule.

Back to a quiet house for a few hours. Back to a focused day of meaning, purposeful, helpful activities with my little guy.

And even though it was a long weekend, full of changes in routine, full of unpredictability, a little more chaos moving about the house

it was indeed a pretty nice long weekend!

Ty and Sarah were really into playing together- and did a great job. Ty loves teaching her all about football, and she's a willing participant.

But even with things rolling along, I cannot for the life of me figure out why he is waking up so much at night.

He's regularly waking up at 2am all last week- he gets up, fixes a bowl of oatmeal, watches a little video, and then heads back to bed. Now, this is better then it used to be.

At least he isn't waking me up, or the rest of the house. We have definitely had the periods of time of this night waking and him thinking it's party time... and causing chaos and purposely waking everyone up..... that was not a fun time :(

This, well, he wakes up, (Brian helps him because it's dark and Ty won't walk into a room that is dark- so Brian turns lights on for him and gets him set up. And then goes back to bed

So the last several weeks it's been 2am, even some days at 1:00am or 1:30am- ugh

This morning Ty gets out of bed at 8am and tells me "well I got up at 4:00am- that's better then 1, 2 or 3am, right?"

well, um sure, I guess 4 is better then 1, 2 or 3am.....

But when I think back to when he was much younger- before we even had any diagnoses, when he was just a little guy, 2 and 3....... what did he always do?

He ALWAYS woke up around 2 or 3am...... crying, screaming..... and then would continue to cry for the next several hours,

This was every night.... it was so tough, and we got so little sleep- Brian went and slept in his "dedicated" room, and Ty slept in our bed with me

Brian had to go to work.... it was so hard sleeping so little, night after night after night- for years.... talk about feeling like you're going crazy- not sleeping - does that!

Ty would just cry and be inconsolable for 3-4 hours every night- the only thing that would ultimately help was me bouncing him vigorously on the big yoga ball.....but even that wasn't always effective, but the only thing that would some what soothe him.

Not exactly what I wanted to be doing at 3am- bouncing on a big yoga ball for an hour while holding my toddler.... and still being up for 3 or 4 hours every night-

oh and then having to get up to get Megan off to school.

Those were really tough times and really tough nights.

But that is what is so puzzling to me.... because he's done this night waking thing more years in a row then actually sleeping well. We've have good periods of time (all were before he started school)

But we have not been able to ever consistently count on sleep, consistently count on him not waking up and wandering around the house at night

and even if he's not purposely waking us up...... him wandering around the house, fixing himself food, well it's not a time I can easily just fall back asleep, until I hear him crawl back into bed with Brian.... and so I"ve lost that sleep too.

It's funny, Brian can sleep right through it all.... but I can't... I think it's back to that whole mommy / daddy thing when you have a baby... and how mommy's can't just ignore different cues the baby gives.. heck I can't ignore cue's other babies give... it's such a maternal instinct to help a baby.... soothe a baby, comfort a baby... where as for dad's, well it's just different and I don't think anyone will argue with that!

So this whole night waking, not sleeping through the night, waking up and eating something- then about an hour later returning to bed is puzzling me....

and even with reinforcements, even the rare one time he doesn't wake up and sleeps all night, well...... never consistent.

the only thing that is consistent these days is his night waking.... and whether it's 2, 3, or 4am...... it just happens.

And it's happened more times then not throughout his entire life.....

But with the days we've been having, with him waking up and not waking everyone else up, what are we to do?

It just is, what it is..... and whatever the cause is, it is stronger then any reward, incentive, threat, plea, that we may do.....

It is what it is.....and pretty much there isn't a damn thing we can do about it!

It's just like the picture I have posted above on this blog.... Autism sleeps, just not where or when we want..... that is so true...

He naps more often then not.... regardless of the situation.... sleep just over takes his body at some point.. and that's it.. he's asleep..Very much like a newborn- where boom- they're out like a light

We just have to nurture it, accept it, and allow it to occur..... he's a kid, a growing, developing, little boy that needs sleep....... so when it happens, we just let it happen.

But seriously, it would be nice to have at least a few nights in a row of uninterrupted sleep..... just a few.... we don't have a high bar of what we expect.... but just a few, and in a row..... please!!!