Friday, June 29, 2012

Sleep Study Results

Adalyn had her follow-up sleep study appointment yesterday. The results seem to be two fold: a potential medical issue, along with some behavioral components.

The study showed that she did have "significantly fragmented and disrupted" sleep that night. It appears that she has a high amount of spontaneous leg movements. Which could be waking her up.

On the flip side of that, when she wakes up she wants to have milk/bottle to go back to sleep with. This is the behavioral part of it. The habit side of things. Though she only gets milk/a bottle before bed she has gotten that engrained in part of the going to sleep process it appears.

The plan:
--This week we are only giving her milk/a bottle before the nap time/bed time routine. Meaning that the bottle doesn't go into the bedroom, so that we can separate that portion out of the sleeping routine. 
--Next week the bottle will be going bye-bye! I've tried to get rid of the bottle, but she refuses to drink milk out of any other kind of cup. And as stated above drinking milk/a bottle was a big part of her going to sleep routine. With such rough nights from her I just didn't want to deal with one more issue. But maybe that is part of the issue anyways. We'll be pulling the plug on the bottle next week. I expect there to be a rough couple of days of sleeping, but fingers crossed she'll give in and just drink the darn milk out of a sippy cup. This also will help most likely with her eating as well. All she wants to do is drink milk. I hope with the bottle gone her milk consumption will drop helping her food intake to increase.
--Today we are getting her blood checked for her ferritin level. A low ferritin (part of iron) could be causing her restless legs. If her ferritin level is low then we'll add an iron supplement with the hopes that will keep her leg movements down. Which in turn I hope keeps her from waking up so frequently and needing support to go back to sleep.

She did not show any major sleep apnea issues during the study. At this point in time we have ruled out any adenoid or tonsil issues.

We will have a follow up appointment in 3-6 months if the above plan doesn't improve her sleep. If we feel at that point there are still major sleep issues going on then we will do another sleep study. 

I actually feel slightly hopeful that we may be able to kick this crappy sleep thing in the butt. The plan isn't anything amazing or mind blowing, but it makes sense. She is in a vicious cycle of waking up because her leg movements and bad bottle/milk habit isn't helping the situation. Fingers crossed we can break the cycle quickly and with out a lot of pain for any of us.


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