Bedtime Snack

Over the years, Mikey struggled with sleep.  Actually, more accurately, I struggled. He was perfectly happy not to sleep and he rarely woke anyone else in the house. My Momma Bear Spidey-Sense would wake me every time he made noise. He was safe in his bedroom (unless he needed to use the bathroom, which he could do on his own), but I knew he wasn’t sleeping through the night.

His doctor recommended a sleep study, which was pretty awful – I’ll share that whole story with you another time. It found that he had restless leg syndrome combined with sleep apnea. One prevented him from falling asleep and the other woke him at random times in the night. Michael got his tonsils and adenoids taken out to help with the sleep apnea and began taking an iron supplement for the restless leg syndrome.

When we began giving the iron supplement, we gave it before our bedtime routine with a small snack.  Later, we started giving it at dinner because we found Mikey didn’t reliably want or need a bedtime snack and iron is best taken with food.

On this night, Mikey made his own bedtime snack. I asked if he wanted to write about this for his journal. Once he was in bed, I printed the photos and then we probably wrote the journal entry the next morning. Mikey went through phases in which he wanted me to write for him. If he asked clearly, I often did so happily. On these occasions (as when he wrote for himself or composed sentences on his iPad), the journal entry is a product of our conversation about the pictures. In entries like this one, I often asked questions to get Mikey to expand his thoughts.

Bedtime Routine

When your child struggles with sleep, one of the first things your doctor will ask you to do is check what they call, ‘sleep hygiene.’ In other words, are you routinely doing the things that will help your child to get a good night’s sleep.

1. Do they have the same bedtime, or at least the same wake-up time each day?
2. Do they have a quiet, relatively dark, somewhat cool space in which to sleep?
3. Do they have a bedtime routine that stays consistent each night (think bath, reading, bed)?
4. Do they abstain from all caffeine? For adults, they also ask about smoking and alcohol consumption…let’s just assume your kids are not doing any of these.
5. Are they getting some bright sunlight first thing in the morning and 60 minutes of exercise during the day?
6. Are you turning off electronics at least one hour before bedtime and keeping the electronics out of their bedroom?

If you’re already doing all these things and your child still struggles, it may be worth seeing a pediatric sleep specialist.  Ask your primary care doctor to refer you.