Sleep Deprivation

 This child has been cutting teeth. She has NEVER been an easy teether. As we say around here, Princess doesn't do pain. So, whenever she's teething, she doesn't sleep without being doped up on Tylenol. I've tried teething tablets with no noticeable difference. We bought her an amber teething necklace which has helped a little. She no longer screams all day long, but she still doesn't sleep worth a darn. Which also means that Rod and I don't sleep worth a darn. These pictures were taken after 3 nights of being awake from 1:00am- 5:30 am and not taking naps. She was finally so tired she fell asleep just like this.

  Owen's medication keeps him from falling asleep easily.  He often doesn't finally fall asleep until midnight.  The doctors have assured us that that isn't a side effect from the drugs, but we have noticed a definite link between med increases and trouble sleeping, so I'm going to assume it isn't just my imagination. Owen also was a great sleeper until he started taking all the meds.
 Most of his bad seizures happen while he is asleep, so we have him sleeping in our room still. He doesn't make any noise during the seizures, so we sleep with one hand on him all night. Obviously that doesn't help us get a great night's rest either.

  I honestly can't remember the last time I got more than 6 hours of sleep in a night and that usually isn't in a row! Brenna has been sleeping better at night when she isn't teething and she's almost done with everything except her 2nd year molars, but Owen still wakes up several times after not going to sleep until at least 10:30. We're really hoping the ketogenic diet works well enough that we can reduce or eliminate some of his meds so maybe he'll sleep again.