Dan brought Elijah to see the sleep specialist today at Children's. In a nutshell, we need to reset Elijah's sleep cycle. This is pretty much what we already knew, but she gave us a few key pointers. We had been having him do light therapy, but stopped a few weeks ago because it didn't seem to be helping. We had also started giving him melatonin occasionally at night, which we learned today was probably hurting more than anything only because of our timing. What we want to try to do is decrease his melatonin levels at night (consistent light therapy should help with this) and increase the melatonin in his body when he starts to stir in the early morning hours, around 2-3:00am. What we will begin to do is get up around 3:00 (or earlier, if we hear him stirring) and squirt a few drops of melatonin drops into his mouth. The doctor's hope is that after four weeks, he will have a much more normal sleep cycle and will not be waking up so early. If there is no change in four weeks, we will borrow a device from the clinic that would go onto his wrist and measure night-time activity. I'm feeling hopeful! Giving him melatonin in the early morning (as opposed to right before bed) is something I NEVER would have thought of on my own.
Early tomorrow morning Dan and I will attend E's IEP meeting. I have such a pit in my stomach about it, but we are praying for the best!
I'm off to enjoy my brand new computer set-up! It's unbelievably awesome! I have been editing thousands of photos on my little 13-inch laptop for the past two years. Now I have a gigantic monitor that I barely know what to do with! So exciting!
Thanks for checking in! Have a great Friday!
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