Sophia

Sophia has always been a good sleeper. Well, at least since we "sleep trained" her when she was around 4 months old. Lately, she is not a good sleeper. She is getting up 5 and 6 times a night, coming out of her room, waking us up and driving us crazy. Seriously, I am going crazy. I know, I know, there are lots of fixes for this, I know there are. Here is the thing; her having Diabetes complicates everything, including this. Honestly, I blame the Diabetes. The thing about Diabetes that most people don't realize is that there are LOTS of things about Diabetes that people don't realize. I totally understand because just under a year ago I didn't really know anything about Diabetes. I knew that it had something to do with not being able to have candy. (Not true.) And that Julia Roberts character died from complications of Diabetes on the movie "Steel Magnolias" after she had a baby against the advice of her doctors. (Not really all that likely now a days.) Anyways, back to the sleeping, or lack there of.

Since Sophia's body doesn't make insulin anymore, (insulin carries the glucose which is what carbs breakdown into, from our blood to all the rest of our body so that we can function properly). We give her insulin anytime that she eats carbs and we check her blood regularly to make sure that her blood sugar isn't too high, (Hyperglycemia). Or, it may be to low, (hypoglycemia) , if she has had too much insulin, activity, the sky is too gray, cars going to fast, or because someone is sneezing on another continent, then we need to give her sugar to bring up her blood sugar to a safe level. (I added those arbitrary reasons for why her blood sugar is relentlessly fluctuating because that's how it seems sometimes). Either way, it's not a good thing. Both hyperglycemia, (high) and hypoglycemia, (low) are not good for her body. a low can be especially dangerous because she can lose consciousness or have a seizure. At nighttime, we check her blood sugar to make sure that she is at a healthy range. At least 5 to 10 times a week she has low blood sugar during the night at some point and it causes her to wake up. When she does, she is some or all of the following: starving, feeling sick, irrational, shaky, sweaty, pale, weepy, and combative. Sometimes, but less often, she wakes up with really high blood sugar and has a soaking wet diaper, or has wet through her diaper, (a symptom of high blood sugar).

She is starting to learn how to manipulate her lows and her highs even though she doesn't really understand that she is. She will come out of her room at some point after we have put her to bed and say that she is hungry. Well, usually one might say to their child, "that's nice dear, you already had dinner, go back to bed." End of story. Well, with Sophia, as much as I want to tell her that and send her right back to bed, there is that part of me that wonders, "but what if her blood sugar is low and I send her back to bed and then she gets really low and she passes out..." So, then we check her blood to see if it is truly low or she is just saying that she feels that way to stall going to bed. About 1/3 of the time she is truly low and does need to be given food. The rest of the time she isn't and so we put her right back to bed. Then, she may or may not decide to come out again and try and repeat the whole process. Or maybe she will try again at 3am, then 5am. The real trouble comes when maybe we check her at 9pm when she complains of not feeling well, and her blood is normal. But then, after she still won't go to sleep for another hour, and has been crying in her room, we may decide to go ahead and check her again and this time she is low and does need food. You see, it is so inconsistent and therefore, we are too. At one point in the night I may tell her, "go to sleep, no, you can't have anything to eat. You're body doesn't need anything right now". But then, later that night, or the next when she asks the same thing I may have to say, "Here is something to eat". For her little 2 year old brain, I'm sure all that she have gathered is that if she keeps complaining enough, at some point we will respond. It's hard because we don't really feel like we can "call her bluff" and just ignore her. There have been numerous times when I have been very frustrated and said to myself, "I am not going in there, she is fine. I know she is. I checked her an hour ago, she had enough to eat, she can scream all night for all I care!" But then, I give in and go check her, and much to my surprise, her blood sugar is like 42. Then of course, I feel really bad and I'm glad that I checked her. But other nights I will check her 3 times over a three hour period of her crying to be fed and her blood sugar is fine. Then I'm also really mad and frustrated.

Hopefully when she is older she won't do this anymore because she will have a better understanding of what is going on with her body. I try and be understanding because I have no idea what it feels like to be in her body and experience all the ups and downs that she feels. But I need to be more patient. I try to explain to her why she sometimes gets to eat and why she sometimes doesn't, and I think that she may start to understand soon. But in the meantime I just have to deal with it and add this too my "I'll miss this when she's older" list.