Sweet Dreams

As I’ve probably mentioned far too many times on this blog, Thurston is not a huge fan of sleep. We are always looking for new ideas and helpful hints to try and convince him to take a trip to the land of nod. We will try anything!

I was really excited when we were sent a Ewan the Dream Sheep from www.sweetdreamers.co.uk as I’d heard some really great things about him from some other mums. We have been through a lot of toys in our house over the last 8 years that play lullabies or have glowing lights. My kids call them Fimbles as the first one we had was a Florrie from The Fimbles! The ‘Fimbles’ we’ve tried have always been a bit disappointing in one way or another. I’ve found 3 main problems with most of them. Firstly, the songs can be loud and end up stimulating the child and actually waking them up rather than helping them drift off. Secondly, the sounds last for a few minutes only, before switching off, so just as your little one is falling asleep, the lack of sound wakes them up and you are back to square one. Lastly, the ones I have had, you have to give a great big nudge in the middle to turn them on which is hard to do without waking up a light sleeper.

When Ewan arrived, all 3 kids were eager to give him a try and Zeke (middle child!) was in love with him at once. Ewan is a lovely round, fluffy sheep who is perfect for cuddling and comforting making him a really lovely night-time pal! He has a soothing pink glow which is not bright at all so does not distract children trying to get to sleep.

Ewan has 4 different sound options which are easy to choose just by clicking on a tiny button on his feet, so the kids are not disturbed by me fumbling round in the dark trying to get it to work! There are soothing womb and heartbeat sounds which I’m sure would be great for a new baby as it sounds very reassuring. There is also a vaccuum cleaner option which I know can be a lifesaver for agitated small babies. The harp music is really relaxing and peaceful, and makes a lovely sleepy atmosphere in the children’s room. My favourite of all the sound options has to be the rain. What could be more relaxing and cosy than the sound of raindrops while you are snoozing?!

Of course, Thurston’s sleep disorder is part of his Autism and so he is a very tough nut to crack when it comes to getting a full night’s sleep. Although I can’t say that Ewan helps him to get to sleep, I can say that having Ewan in the bedroom playing his lovely harp music has really helped Thurston to feel calmer. His big brother Zeke is in charge of Ewan, and is incredibly skilled at pressing the button as soon as anyone in the room stirs. This has been really great for Thurston and he wakes up slower and less upset which buys me an extra 5 minutes in bed each time, which when you are incredibly sleep deprived is invaluable.

For either of my other 2 children, I can honestly say that Ewan the Dream Sheep would have had them snoring away in minutes, no problem. In fact that is exactly what he does for Zeke (5). With Ewan’s help, Thurston is a little bit calmer and more relaxed in the night which is so helpful to me as it is much easier to look after a happy child in the night than a grumpy one, so thank you Ewan!!

Thanks for reading!

Hanj x

www.sweetdreamers.co.uk

Pixie Police

I have a real love for soft baby blankets. Those lovely silky-soft cotton or jersey blankets that just tuck into the car seat or pram to keep the baby all cosy and warm. The only problem is that I don’t have a baby anymore and although I have about 12 of those lovely cotton blankets, none of them even cover the length of my toddler, let alone make him feel cosy!

Luckily, at least one company has finally cottoned (!) on to the fact that we need these blankets for longer than babyhood and have made a beautiful big blanket which I am in love with. Pixie Dixie www.pixiedixie.co.uk makes a gorgeous 100% cotton jersey double thickness blanket which at 120cm x 120cm is fantastic for toddlers.

The blanket we have is white with blue trim with gorgeous little winking policemen scattered all over it. It’s such an unusual and quirky design and looks adorable on Thurston’s little white bed.

Thurston has had the Pixie Dixie Police blanket as his bed blanket several times this Summer and it is so brilliant. It has all the comfort you need from a cosy blanket but it is so lightweight and breathable that he hasn’t been at all hot or sweaty despite the humid temperatures we have been having.

Pixie Dixie also make these blankets in Guards and Bus patterns which are equally delightful, but I think our Policemen one is the best!! We love it!

Thanks for reading!

Hanj x

www.pixiedixie.co.uk

Penguin PJs!

I’ve always had a bit of a tricky time finding pyjamas that Thurston is happy with. I think this is because of his hypersensitivities, so he only likes pyjamas that are comfortable around his waist and are made of supersoft materials. Lately, I have found a few pairs that he is more than pleased with. The latest pair were sent to us by PJ Zoo. They make adorable pyjamas with various animal designs on them, which is great as it can help Thurston to understand that we are getting ready for bed if I say to him “penguin jamamas!”. We went with the penguin design as we had seen some recently at the wildlife park and Thurston really liked watching them. I think he is a bit like a penguin actually, he waddles along and loves to splash in the water!

These pyjamas are great quality and seem to be really comfortable for him. They are made of 100% cotton and are a jersey material. The 3/4 length bottoms are perfect for Thurston because although it is hot, he really dislikes having his knees uncovered! I’ve washed these several times now and they still look like new. They are really sweet pyjamas and feel lovely when we cuddle up on the sofa in the evenings. I will definitely be ordering 2 more pairs for the other kids, I think I will go for a Parrot for Louis and a Dinosaur for Zeke!

Thanks for reading

Hanj x

www.pjzoo.com

Have Bed, Will Travel

Up until recently, whenever we stayed overnight anywhere we took a travel cot with us. It was very satisfying having Thurston safely contained! However, the last time I used it was when Alex was in hospital having spinal surgery and I stayed at my mum’s house. I was in a very deep sleep having spent the day at the hospital, so didn’t hear any noise but woke up when I felt a very heavy lump on my legs. I opened one eye and the heavy lump was grinning at me, so that was that! Thurston can now escape the travel cot! He does sleep in a bed at home now so I set about looking for a travel bed too.

Worlds Apart were very kind and sent Thurston a Ready Bed to try. They sent him the Cars 2 model which was obviously an instant hit and he needed no persuading to try it out. We set it up in the lounge straight away and actually struggled to get him out. It was really easy and fast to pump up. In fact, we have had Ready Beds before for the other children, and Worlds Apart have made some really great improvements on the pump and valve since the last time we bought one. It is a much better design and has a quick-release part to the valve which means it deflates in no time at all.

 

We took the Ready Bed with us on an overnight stay at a friend’s house and Thurston settled in it no problem. It was so much easier laying him down in the bed than trying to lean over a cot side to get him in. It looked really comfortable and comes with a light duvet already attached. The Ready Bed looks really appealing and colourful, and the Cars 2 design was brilliant for Thurston who is now very fond of his “Carbed!”. We chose the option of having the Ready Bed suitable from 3 years instead of 2 years so that it would last him longer. The only slight problem is that I think he might still be a bit lightweight for it, as this happened when he rolled over!!!!

 

We did all have a good laugh when we found him though, he didn’t even wake up when he was rolled back!

The Cars 2 Ready bed is a really useful item and makes staying overnight so much simpler. It all packs away really small into a little bag that comes with it, and even fits under the kids’ feet in the car if the boot is jam-packed! I may now need to buy 2 more…..!

Thanks for reading!

Hanj x

Soft and Silver

The weather is ridiculously unpredictable at the moment and it is really affecting Thurston’s sleep. He is really disturbed by the heat, but he doesn’t like to sleep without pyjamas or a blanket. He has always been hypersensitive to clothing as well, and hates any waistbands that are too tight, or any label that rubs against his skin. His skin is very sensitive and he does have outbreaks of Eczema when he becomes very stressed and uncomfortable.

I found this lovely website online www.silversense.co.uk, whose clothing is made of cotton-rich knitted fabrics blended with natural silver fibre. The silver has a calming effect on itchy skin which is brilliant for children who struggle with Eczema.

The best thing about Silver Sense clothing is that it is thermo-regulating meaning that it keeps kids cool in the Summer and warm in the Winter. I was so pleased to find some proper pyjamas that Thurston could wear while it was so hot.

Silver Sense very kindly sent me a pair of Sidney the Spider’s jammies, along with a matching dribble bib and a Regal Albert dribble bib. The bibs were ideal for Thurston as they tied on at the back which means they will grow with him. That is really useful for older children who still dribble.

The pyjamas and bibs are incredibly soft and comfortable and Thurston was really relaxed wearing them. Even in humid sticky weather (although he still woke at night) he wasn’t distressed by his clothing or pulling at it at all, which is really surprising.

The pyjamas are really lovely quality and came out of the wash the exact same colour and shape as they went in. The envelope-style neck often stretches on other pyjamas but it has stayed perfect on the Silver Sense ones.

I will definitely be ordering more stuff from Silver Sense as anything that helps Autistic children get to sleep comfortably is fantastic. I’ve got my eye on Jeffrey the Monkey’s jammies next!

Thanks for reading!

Hanj x

zzzzzzzzz

I have seen Despicable Me, Winnie the Pooh, Cars, Cars 2, Toy Story 3 and Shaun the Sheep A LOT! I mean a lot. Each film has been on repeat in my house for 3 months at a time all day, every day and all night sometimes. When I am camped out downstairs with the DVD player helping me keep Thurston company in the small hours, the storylines and songs subconsciously slip into my memory. I could recite Despicable Me to you word for word if you like….”we are going to steal ze moon”. I won’t though!

The hardest aspect of Autism for me personally, is the sleep disorders that can come with it. Unfortunately, Thurston has a fairly extreme sleep disorder. I already had 2 kids when I had Thurston, so I was used to a certain amount of sleep deprivation with a newborn, a teething baby or a toddler having nightmares. All of that is completely bearable and understandable. You get grumpy, drink more coffee, people feel sorry for you and ask how you are. Ultimately, you do end up looking back on it fondly in a way, because losing sleep is part & parcel of having a baby. It’s almost part of the fun, you compare sleeping patterns with other mums, share tips (not that I’ve got any, I reckon a lot of it is just jammy luck!), discuss which under-eye concealers work best and usually by age 3, you’re back to normal, sleeping in your own bed all night with your man and wondering whether you should go through it all over again!!

Obviously when Thurston was a baby, he didn’t sleep. Apart from general waking for a feed, he also suffers from Gastro Oesophageal Reflux and so couldn’t lay on his back. He either slept on our chests while we tried to sleep sitting up propped by pillows, or in a vibrating bouncy chair. Not exactly ideal but we didn’t mind, because we assumed that he was a difficult baby and we would have to endure another couple of years of poor sleep and then it would get back to normal. Erm, no! The reflux got worse and worse. Thurston was even gagging on his own saliva and wasn’t safe to sleep in a room without us since the Speech Therapist had said “there is an unacceptable risk of gagging or choking”. We squeezed the cot into our bedroom but it became exhausting dragging ourselves to the end of the bed every half hour and changing all the vomitty bed sheets. I actually started to be frightened of going to bed! By 8 months old, Thurston was sleeping in the bed with us so he could be propped up on our pillows. We had a stash of towels and muslin cloths by the side of our bed. Now don’t judge me, but when your child is vomiting in your bed up to 10 times a night, it revoltingly becomes acceptable to simply wipe his face, stick a towel over the bed sheet and pass out while he has 20 minutes sleep from the relief of finally throwing up!!

The worst night we had with Thurston during this time was the night before Zeke’s 3rd birthday. We had cleared up so much refluxy sick that we had run out of towels and bedsheets and had no option but to just get up for the day at 3am and let Thurston sleep in his bouncy chair (hardly ideal at 14 months old). Naturally, in the birthday excitement, Zeke got up for his Mr Men themed birthday just before 6am and we managed through our slightly hysterical sleep deprivation to enjoy him opening all his Mr Men toys and books before Alex went off to work. By the time my mum and sister came to wish him Happy Birthday, I couldn’t take it anymore. My eyes were hot and Thurston was just flopping over on the floor. I left my sister to babysit and took him to the GP. He prescribed infant Gaviscon (on top of his normal reflux meds Ranitidine and Domperidone) and some Phenergan to allow him to sleep while the reflux was at its worst. I initially felt very relieved that we were going to get some sleep that night but still had to get through the rest of Zeke’s birthday before we could make it to the finish line! We actually had a brilliant time, our friends came with us and we had a blast, but Thurston wasn’t right. He was clingy and miserable and desperate to sleep. It was nothing like having a 14 month old, I felt like I had a gigantic newborn.

(me and T in Chiquitos for Zeke’s birthday)

That night and for the week the Phenergan lasted, Thurston slept. Disappointingly, Phenergan can only be used short term. Damn.

Thurston’s sleep pattern did change. We found a combination of Reflux medicine that worked for him and he stopped wretching and vomitting in the night. We moved his cot into the children’s bedroom and he started to sleep for longer stretches. Amazing! It was just around this point that Thurston began fighting sleep. I don’t mean in the usual whingy, overtired toddler way, I mean proper, full-on fisticuffs!! Every night, I would give him his medicine and a bottle of formula on my lap and just when he was about to drift off, he would freak out and start smashing my face in. I have had black eyes, bruises, scratches, split lips, nose bleeds, earrings yanked out. It was very sad, he was so terrified of going to sleep, of the unknown, that he would do anything to stay awake which meant lashing out at me. During the daytimes, he was really suffering. Laying on the floor for hours and hours stroking the label on his favourite pillow. He was constantly ill with ear infections, tonsilitus, viruses etc. We were exhausted.

When he was diagnosed with Autism aged 20 months, he was placed under the care of a Development Paediatrician. She offered us Melatonin to help him sleep. Melatonin is a naturally occuring hormone which helps us all to sleep. To break through the cycle of fear that Thurston was stuck in, he needed a top up of Melatonin on prescription. The 1st time we gave it to him, he had his medicine, formula and cuddles like usual, then drifted off to sleep after 20 minutes. Peacefully. No fighting. To me, Melatonin is a magical, fairy-dust, miraculous, invalualuable wonder-drug. It’s the holy grail. It is puzzlingly controversial. We have to get the prescription from his Consultant, as GPs are not allowed to prescribe it. I had to sign a form at the pharmacy to state that I understood it wasn’t licensed for children of Thurston’s age. For something that is naturally occurring in all of our bodies, I do not understand the controversy that surrounds precribing Melatonin to children with sleep disorders. I can only assume that the worry is that every sleep deprived parent would start to drug their child to sleep. I wouldn’t like to be that cynical. I hope that parents are intelligent enough to see the difference between a teething baby and a toddler who is so terrified of sleeping that they are making themselves unwell. Perhaps I am naïve.

I wish I could say that Melatonin spelled the end of Thurston’s sleeping troubles. However, Melatonin can only help children ‘get’ to sleep, not ‘stay’ asleep. As soon as Thurston settled into his new pattern of gently falling asleep with his medicine, he began waking up at never-before-seen, lonely hours of the night and assuming it to be the start of the new day. Sometimes it would be 4am (ouch), sometimes 5am (not too bad), sometimes 2am (soul destroying) and sometimes as soon as my head hits the pillow at 11pm (HELP ME!!). My friends always tell me I look too fresh-faced for not having any sleep. I’m not being big headed, they really do say that, but I think that I am always happy and grateful that something has helped my tiny son to get over his fear of going to sleep. My face is fresh because it’s not being battered every evening. Instead of being scratched and slapped for hours, I get half an hour every night to cuddle my son, stroke his hair and watch him drift off to sleep happily. It’s the best time of day.

Nowadays, Thurston’s sleep comes and goes in phases which I am OK with. The bad phases still sound pretty bad to anyone that values their sleep, but I am used to my little routine of making a little bed in the lounge and watching Despicable Me from 2am until the other children get up. Sometimes I get to go back to bed and sometimes I don’t, but it really doesn’t matter any more. He is happy, content and smiling when he goes to sleep and when he wakes up. How can I be annoyed with that? I might need a bit of extra coffee to get me going and I might have bags under my eyes every day for years to come but that’s why Benefit created Some Kinda Gorgeous foundation. So not only am I grateful to Melatonin, but I am also grateful to Benefit!

Thanks for reading, don’t let the bed bugs bite! Hanj x