Don't take the nap away!

The signs are there. Michael used to go down at 7:30 or so at night, fall asleep on his own in about a half an hour and then sleep through till about 7:00 the next morning. He would also go down for about a 2 and ½ hour nap every afternoon. It was a beautiful thing. Then he started playing before falling asleep at night. We still put him down between 7:30 and 8:00 in the evening, but he’s often still awake at 9:30. He entertains himself in his room, and then falls asleep on his own but it’s still a sign. He’s also waking up earlier - at around 6:15 in the morning. At naptime he plays and plays in his room. He’ll play for two hours and never fall asleep. If I go into his room and sit in a chair insisting that he lie still in his bed he’ll fall asleep after 15 minutes or so. Then he’ll still sleep for about two hours. However, I think the signs are there. He’s ready to drop the nap.

• He doesn’t fall asleep on his own for his nap any more.
• He is fine, behaviorally, until bedtime even when he doesn’t nap.
• He’s staying awake after bedtime for at least an hour or more.
• He’s waking up earlier in the morning.

He’s willing to play quietly in his room while his sister naps giving me a break in the afternoon. Why am I still going upstairs and putting him to sleep?

I do it because it’s Ava’s therapy time. That time between when Ava wakes up and when Michael wakes up is when I work with her on her speech. If I stop putting Michael to sleep he’ll hear her get up and want to come downstairs too. Then I lose the therapy time.

I need a plan for working with Ava while Michael is up, but I haven’t figured something out yet. I need to find something to entertain him quietly that won’t interest her at all. The problem is, she wants to do everything he’s doing. Until I have a brilliant idea I’ll just muddle along with the current setup. But it won’t last much longer. I think Michael’s afternoon nap is on its way out. Suggestions?

Compliment?

I was tucking Michael into bed tonight and told him in a rather sappy voice, "Goodnight, Little One. I love you." In a rather sappy voice, he returned, "Goodnight, Little One....I mean Big One. I love you too."

Updates - ENT and Lost Opportunity

Well, I don't know if any of you encountered the huge winter storm that went through a third of the country this week, but we were pretty much center stage. We had 12 hours or so of freezing rain / sleet on the very day of our ENT appointment. Needless to say, we've rescheduled. Now we're going to try next Tuesday instead.

It seems like such a pointless endeavor. Ava is going to hate it. We might not find out anything useful at all. And I feel like she can hear - why am I even putting us through this? Surely her receptive language wouldn't be pretty much normal if she had a hearing loss. Surely she wouldn't ask about the car driving by outside, or the big bang (caused by her brother) from the other room if she can't hear.

On the other hand, she hangs out right in front of the television when it is on. Occasionally she doesn't respond to her name or a request (What child doesn't?). And we need to be sure there isn't some subtle kind of hearing loss that could be affecting her understanding of speech and the various speech sounds. I would feel pretty silly if I spent all this time worrying about apraxia to later discover it's something entirely different. We just have to be sure. It looks like apraxia. In fact, it looks more and more like apraxia every day. But I have to eliminate other possibilities. And so we'll try the ENT. Wish me luck. (Difficult child. Grumble, grumble.)

I also posted the other night about my mis-communication with the local apraxia expert. We'll call her Ms. J. Well, I got lucky there. At first, she did tell me that she had filled her appointment slots. I wrote back to her with a very nice email asking her to let me know if any were open for her next clinic weekend and apologizing again for the mix-up. She wrote back and offered me a early morning appointment at 8am. She was willing to come in early just to see us. Since Ava and Michael have taken to waking up at about 6:20 in the morning these days, getting to an 8am appointment is easy. I was grateful she offered and I'm so excited. I'll let you know how things go and what Ms. J thinks of Ava's speech after we meet with her.