Ds3 is about 3 1/2y. He has a craniofacial defect that makes it harder to breath at night, similar to a stuffy nose with a cold, so he sleeps poorly (sleep study shows abnormal but not really anything fixable or dangerous--surgery to correct his nose won't be until he is a teenager--just "annoying"). He is restless and wakes frequently. He still take a full bottle, thickened with cereal for swallowing issues, about 4x a night. When I have tried to wean by watering down the milk, he increases the numbers of bottles he takes to equivalent calories, and I don't know how else to do it (#1 was bf #2 was not, but both followed a gradual pattern of less waking/feeding). Other issues: he is adopted, and had a rough transition/adjustment with a lot of grieving that was especially obvious at night. He would wake for hours and scream and cry for his foster Mom, almost every night, for close to a year. It was awful. While we are past that, he is very much in need of Mom/Dad presence when he wakes 6-8x or more a night. He cosleeps part of the night, although starts out in a toddler bed at the foot of ours. In addition, he is very high needs during the day, and has frequent intense, loud tantrums that can last 1-2 hrs at times. He is super energetic, almost certainly will be dx ADHD at some point. I am worn out, plain and simple. I frequently feel my other 2 kids are not getting enough attention/time, as I am so worn out. I am also doing a FT externship this semester, and so am WOTH for the first time since I have had kids. I am seriously exhausted, getting only 6-7h of very interrupted sleep a night. And now I can't even nap.
Here is what my gut tells me is going on--the breathing is affecting the quality of his sleep and making him wake more. Whereas most kids at this point would just roll over and go back to sleep, he is needing the comfort of Mama and a bottle to feel secure due to the adoption/attachment issues. So I feel like, if we can improve the sleep we can break the cycle. I also think that his behavior would be better if he was rested; I know that obstructive sleep apnea can mimic ADHD behaviorwise. His behaviorisi bad enough that I have realized that I am limiting how often we even leave the house, as tantrums and meltdowns can be sparked by any instance of no or limits.
So the longwinded point of all this--can melatonin help him sleep better? I read the recent thread about it, and was thinking to use the sublingual one, even if it only gave us a couple of longer stretches. Oh, and we tried calms forte. He slept in 2 beautiful stretches, punctuated by a night terror every.single.night he took it that lasted at least an hour
When we stopped them, no terrors. Started them again, terors came back. Suggestions, help?
Here is what my gut tells me is going on--the breathing is affecting the quality of his sleep and making him wake more. Whereas most kids at this point would just roll over and go back to sleep, he is needing the comfort of Mama and a bottle to feel secure due to the adoption/attachment issues. So I feel like, if we can improve the sleep we can break the cycle. I also think that his behavior would be better if he was rested; I know that obstructive sleep apnea can mimic ADHD behaviorwise. His behaviorisi bad enough that I have realized that I am limiting how often we even leave the house, as tantrums and meltdowns can be sparked by any instance of no or limits.
So the longwinded point of all this--can melatonin help him sleep better? I read the recent thread about it, and was thinking to use the sublingual one, even if it only gave us a couple of longer stretches. Oh, and we tried calms forte. He slept in 2 beautiful stretches, punctuated by a night terror every.single.night he took it that lasted at least an hour
When we stopped them, no terrors. Started them again, terors came back. Suggestions, help?
You are such an amazing mom. REALLY. I don't think I could have made it through a fraction of what you've been doing the past two years.
I am operating on mostly auto pilot at this point. As bad as it still feels sometimes, it is so much better than it was that I am afraid to complain too much 
And his attachment and most of his other milestones are really coming along well--it just seems to be the self regulation behaviors that are just really behind (sleeping, hunger awareness, sitting still for literally more than 5 sec, impulse control, hitting/kicking, tantruming/crying). To me, all of those seem related to poor quality sleep--it's like an extreme version of a 1yo that hasn't napped well in days and is in full meltdown mode. He goes down around 7 and gets up around 6, he's just up so.many.times in between and is so rediculously restless that even when he is asleep, he is waking me up every 20 minutes sometimes. He will not, can not, be in his own bed for the night. I don't think it's me, this is the 3rd child I have coslept with (although Connor was only for a month) and I never had this problem sleeping with them. I'm glad to know your neuro's plan, that is similar to how I was planning to structure things.
He even sat still during dinner and watched TV! He never sits still through a mealtime, ever. Last night, we doubled the amount to .1 ml, so .33mg at about the same times. Again, more restful sleep, but still fidgety enough to wake me several times, although less than in a typical night (I slept with them last night). When he did wake, he usually settled with no reassurances needed from me, more of the make noise in his sleep rousing like you would expect of a toddler. Another 1/2 bottle less, so down 1 1/2 bottles in 2 nights! (that's about hwo much I have managed to decrease his night bottles in the entire 2 years he has been home!) Again, he woke up happy and no tantrums before school.
Beautyforashes he eats lots of solid food, he just still takes a bottle at night. Long complicated reasons, that basically boil down to a swallowing disorder...he won't drink thickened liquids from a cup.at.all. He can take sips of unthickened water safely, but milk and similar are not really safe unthickened. So he probably doesn't drink enough during the day...the ped and our very conservative dentist both consider the bottles at night the "lesser of two evils" for his health. Sorry if that gave the wrong impression of his age--he is almost 3 1/2y.
