Friday, October 10, 2008

Another wake-up

He's been crying for 40 minutes. Take the time of this post and do the math. And this is about the 2nd or 3rd wake-up tonight.

I can't lay in bed when he's crying. It's futile. So it's off to the computer. I guess now I have a place to vent.

This has been very hard for me. I find my emotional reaction to his crying is often not sympathetic, but hostile (especially at night). How dare he interrupt my sleep. He's obviously tired and needs to go to sleep, so why is he just moaning?

Sometimes I feel that something in me got wired wrong. That the neurons that were supposed to active the "love him and cuddle him and take care of him" centers in my brain instead got routed to the anger and resentment networks.

There's probably nothing wrong with my brain. It's probably set up so that the normal range of baby fussiness and inconvenience doesn't produce hostility. The problem is that he falls outside that normal range.

7 comments:

Umma said...

Hi, just wanted to thank you first for joining the Fragile X web ring. It's nice to see new faces popping up on the web.

I would like to suggest an alternative to your faulty wiring theory. Having lived through the sleep disruptions and having experienced the same anger response...is it possible that it's a reaction to feeling helpless? I think anger is a perfectly normal response to the situation.

You can't make him sleep, you KNOW he'd feel better if he would, all you can do is sit and listen while your limited time for sleep runs down. I remember many nights like that and I was pretty angry/annoyed on many of them.

When you're at the MIND Institute, ask them about melatonin. There's a time release version that might help him stay asleep through the night.

ST said...

Thanks for visiting the blog, Umma. He's been on melatonin for a couple of weeks now. But he's had 4 colds in the past month (!!) so it's hard to tell if the melatonin isn't working or if cold symptoms are keeping him awake. On the few nights that he's been snot-free and on melatonin, it seems like the melatonin is helping...

lindsay said...

I just posted on a message board about how there have been a few times over the last 15 months where I've gotten so angry at my boys when they won't sleep. It's a weird reaction to your beautiful baby, but I understand now how people accidentally hurt their kids when they won't stop screaming.

I hope tonight is better for you guys.

theotherlion said...

Hi! It's nice to meet another FX family. It's also nice to know I'm not the only one who has gotten super angry about the sleep issue. When you can't sleep, your entire personality and ability to cope changes. I think that's what led me to the brink this day, when the doctor basically told me that my son wouldn't sleep for two reasons 1) me and 2) he's retarded. http://theotherlion.blogspot.com/2008/02/emotionally-drained.html

ST said...

Thanks for visiting, lindsay and the other lion. I notice the blog post you linked to was written in February, the other lion. I hope things have gotten better. It seem (knock on wood) like the melatonin is working now that our son doesn't have a cold (this week...)

Anonymous said...

I am pleased that the sleep issues have improved and I can relate to your feelings. Things that we can cope with during the day are so much harder in the night when we are tired, desperate for sleep and know that we will be feeling tired the next day too.

Thankfully these times pass. My FX son is 18 now and we have had many years of interrupted sleep.

ST said...

I'm delighted to hear it gets better, sueblimely. When did your son start sleeping through the night?