Dear Addie,
It was 12:39 am when I first heard the riveting rendition of Who Let the Pigs Out, including oinking noises coming from your room. You were awake for the day, and I was reminded that this little autism journey we are on sometimes feels like some weird science experiment of just how much sleep someone needs to be a functioning human. It was barely Thursday, but you were full of energy, happy as a clam & ready to go, and I was suddenly regretting going to bed at 11:00 pm.
I often joke with people that I haven't slept in eighteen years, but the fun part is, that's kinda not a joke. It all started with those delirious middle of the night newborn feedings and then somehow it just spiraled from there, where I suddenly knew the whole cast of people by name running the home shopping network at 3 am. But all joking aside one of our first signs that we were about to embark on some unfamiliar territory was the day you were born, a wide-eyed, hours-old newborn just staring at us. It was as if you didn't want to miss a single minute of life outside the womb.
The fact of the matter is sleep affects a large percentage of the autism community, and there's not exactly a real clean-cut reason as to why; there is just a laundry list of trial-and-error options to run through if you find yourself in such a predicament. Just like the autism diagnosis itself, it's a spectrum disorder, so what works for one person might not work for others. We've tried just about everything from holistic to medical, weighted blankets, compression sheets, fans, diffusers, oils, creams, melatonin, different diets - the list goes on and is long, but for us in our autism bubble, medication has been where we've seen the most tremendous success, but that has it's drawbacks too. The three medications you use for sleep all have to be compounded to liquid, and your body tends to metabolize quickly, so you are redosing about every six months or so - but again, for us, this is better than doing nothing at all. Side note: Redosing only happens if sleep is interrupted for an extended amount of time, as sometimes hormones or illness can also affect sleep.
Addie, this week you decided that you could only spare 39 minutes of your Thursday with sleep, filling the rest of what was to be our REM cycle with singing, talking, opening and closing doors x3 every time (your new OCD behavior), and wandering the house.
If anyone is gathering data for that science experiment, I almost put dog food in my cereal bowl this morning, But I'm sure it's full of nutrients, so...yeah.
Here's hoping for some shut-eye tonight. Fingers (and toes) crossed!
Love,
Mom