Respite

Obviously I've not been blogging recently.  It's been a pretty insane time since I got back from Ellen Barron. I finally cracked under the pressure last week.  Merryn was screaming at me after another long night and nothing would settle her.  I lost my temper and screamed back, put my hand over her mouth for a few seconds and basically just fell to pieces.  I was so tired, I just wanted her to stop.  I desperately wanted to lie down and sleep.  I don't know if you can understand getting that tired that you can hardly stand up anymore.

Merryn asleep.....ahhhhh

I finally got her calm enough so I could lie down, pulled myself back together and it wasn't until a few hours later when Andrew had already gone to work,  and the kids were both up and had, had breakfast that I really thought about what had happened.  I called Andrew and my sister and started crying and my sister said it was time to call the the psychologist at the FECs team and ask for help.

Don't get me wrong, I've been telling them all what's been going on and that I'm beyond exhausted for a while now, but apparently it takes a mother to tip over the edge to get anyone to do anything about it.  The following night the respite arrived.  For 7 nights straight I have a carer from 10pm to 6am.  I get to go to bed (with earplugs in) and I don't have to get up to the kids at all.

Connor in the hammock at his birthday party

It's wonderful.  I only have one night left of it and I'm dreading having to go back to the way things were.  I should feel nice and rested after the last 6 nights of 6 to 7 hours of consecutive sleep but I don't.  I feel like I've been run over by a bus.  I explained it to Andrew as moving through porridge.  I think the problem is I'm so far beyond sleep deprived that I really need a lot more sleep than that to fix the damage.

Tomorrow I take Connor to the sleep clinic and will be talking to them about slow release melatonin.  I'm hoping that will stop the nights (3 or 4 per week) where he wakes up around 2am and runs around the house playing until dawn (nothing I've tried so far seems to work in keeping him in bed).  He then passes out around 5 or 6am and sleeps for 3 hours.

Merryn has been getting better. She only wakes a few times during the night and is fairly easy to settle now.  I do need her to get into her own room though, which I can't do until my mum moves out as she seems to sleep much better when she's not in with us.

So as always I have plans afoot to try to fix the problems.  Lets just hope these ones work.