A Bedtime Story

Someone wanted to know what we've done differently to get Marshall to sleep through the night now. I usually avoid talking about medications on this blog because I get people telling me how I really shouldn't be giving him so many meds. People have opinions. Lots of them. It all comes down to the fact that Brian and I (not everyone else) were trusted to be Marshall's parents. We have the responsibility of seeking out care for him. We've talked to MANY doctors and therapists. We've been to a sleep specialist, psychologists, pediatricians (we've been through 4), social workers. We've been struggling for help for this boy. We love Marshall. We want him to have as normal of a life as he possibly can. It isn't easy for him or for us. The decision to medicate Marshall was hard for us. We used to be the parents who said, "We'll never medicate our kids." I used to be the type who thought that other parents weren't being smart when they would choose to medicate their children. Oh, how wrong I was. Sleep deprivation is serious business. You can not function without sleep. Marshall has had trouble sleeping his whole life. He used to sleep in 20 min increments. We video taped him so we could prove we weren't exaggerating. He'd sleep for 20 min, wake up and play in his crib for 20 min., finally fall asleep again for 20 min., etc. He did this all night long. Those were the days when Nathan had to sleep on the floor of our bedroom so we could ignore Marshall when he woke up. We were all so sleep deprived.

We took Marshall to a wonderful Sleep Specialist/Pulmonologist in Murray. She had us try medications to get him to sleep a little better so she could perform a sleep study on him. We tried lots of things and got him sleeping better. This was in June of 2006. We were surprised to hear from Dr. Pfeffer a few days later. She actually called us. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, she told me that Marshall had severe obstructive sleep apnea and she wanted him to get to an ENT as soon as possible. She told us to tell the doctor this was an emergency. We got an appointment with Dr. Heras, our ENT, the next day. She looked at the sleep study results and examined Marshall. She said that performing a T&A (tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy) on a child younger than 2 yrs old is quite risky but the chances of him dying of sleep apnea were greater so we were scheduled for surgery 2 days later. Marshall got a cold so it had to be postponed a week but the following week he was in surgery. He had to be admitted and kept overnight for observation because he was so little. Not only was he only 20 months old, he was barely hanging onto 20 lbs....if that.

Fast forward. Marshall eventually healed from his surgery and was able to be off oxygen but he still wouldn't sleep through the night. We are always tired. We tried everything but nothing worked. Here is what it takes to get Marshall to sleep:





1. He has to take 3 medications to get him to sleep. Two are specifically used for sleep, one is to help with his behavior.




2. No TV, video games, loud music, or stimulating activities one hour before bed.





3. Bath with Johnson and Johnson's toddler bedtime bath (with Lavender and Chamomile)







4. Read a few quiet books. (He asks for the book "Christmas Oranges")





5. Blue rope lights wrapped around the foot of his bunk bed





6. Sleepy Baby CD playing on repeat all night long







7. Crickets sound machine






If you have a child who goes to bed easily, you should be so grateful. It's not easy to deal with sleep deprivation every night. Marshall is amazingly well behaved considering how little sleep he usually gets.