difficult child is improving

[Jena]

hi

so difficult child amist the choas with easy child is improving....... she is, get this right now at the library with a friend, yup a real friend! They started off at dunkin donuts which is literally 50 ft. from there than walked alone to library.

it's the friend of her's who has asperger's and well she is the only friend difficult child's had. it seems that the girl, her friend is a little better socially yet we'll see what difficult child says when she gets in.

she took her pocket book (very cute), and money i gave her. I dropped her at the place, and her friends mom's dropped her friend. we left them be. a real growing experience for her and seperation from MOM~!!! yay.

so the cbt is working even though i didnt' think it was..... the rewiring has begun!!

figured i'd share good instead of how i'm being tortured by them!!!

 

[HaoZi]

Yay! Glad to see it, hope they have a wonderful time.

 

[AnnieO]

Jen? I hope you had a triple-something donut and coffee. A reward for YOU!

This should help you a bit... I am glad to hear good news!!!

 

[Jena]

i went home and wrote for a while watched t.v. she had a good time was very proud of herself. i'm happy for her. yet the reality now is i have to remain here, in this neighborhood and school district she's reconnecting now. it's good for her, so i gotta bite the big one for the next 6 years here.

their probably going to meet up again this thursday at library, it'll turn into a weekly thing. it's great growth opportunity for her. next is me starting on small increments of time leaving her home alone, to build her up a bit. i'm going to start wtih ten minutes me outside house her inside and go up from there in ten min intervals.

meanwhile bizarre thing is she's only on 5mg of zyprexa. never added in the lamictal because she had a really bad rash prior to start of medication i wanted to get rid of first. we have a sleep study set up for mid april to see if that gives any clue as to what goes on at nite with-the constant bed wetting and inability to sleep.

i feel like we're working toward getting rid of the bipolar diagnosis. we'll see. she can flip the script at anytime. yet reality is i've been watching her and she's been through alot and it's been hard, her behavior is rough yet not off the wall. i would think if she were BiPolar (BP), it would be off the wall given the things she's been thru

 

[JJJ]

Was she bed wetting before she started the Zyprexa?

 

[Jena]

hi! she's been wetting bed consistently since age 2. this has been our life..... she's 12 now, period will be coming soon...... can't do it anymore. it really starts her day off the wrong way. went for an mri to see if she had a tethered cord (which she soo doesn't in my opinion, it would be daytime wetting also) she couldn't hack mri though.. it's def. emotional

 

[AnnieO]

Something about the bed wetting... Just so you have a frame of reference... And I'd bet 100% that it IS emotional.

I was completely potty-trained by 2 1/2. Around age 3 1/2, my parents split up for 6 months. The first week? Wet the bed every night. And this pretty well continued. Parents had to re-potty train me when they got back together, and I still had issues till about age 8.

With all the upheaval in difficult child's life? Sleep study's good, but the facts may just point to... Stress.

 

[Jena]

i thought same many moons ago, yet truth of matter is her dad and i split she was just over one years old, super young wasn't fully potty trained yet. what happened though was she broke her arm, in the mist of potty training which slowed us down. plenty of kids live in homes where the teen in the home is well a teen. now our situation is as of late the extreme with her.

yet hasnt' always been that way. so same neighborhood for years, etc. same situation. still urinating at night. it doesn't like stop for a period of time than start up again dependent upon whats going on sort of thing. odd thing is when she's on seroquel she doesn't wet the bed at low doses. which throws docs and i off because as doctor said seroquel promotes sleep for difficult child at low doses in the beginning and so you would think deeper sleep def. wetting bed, yet just the opposite.

they've always tagged it as being part of her bipolar disorder. classic symptom. yet that isn't working for me anymore to just say ok shes' peeing every single night due to that. she also drinks alot of liquids prior to bed, sneaks them even though i advise her to cut off liquids at certain time.

i mean it must sound chaotic here lol. yet in all honesty our week besides the recent easy child gone mad part, is quit normal. tutors come each day except thursdays that's her therapist and riding day, routine's in place. library events, pretty typical stuff, her step brother and sister on monday and wednesday she literally plays all afternoon after hw.

 

[Jena]

yet and yes i'm rambling....... over the years i've come to notice difficult child does not like sleep. she stresses at night super bad because she doesnt' like that feeling of tapering off into the unknown it's an uncomfortable concept for her overall. i try to explain the logic behind it, body restores itself at night, you feel better next day etc. yet still she has a hard time letting go and dozing off.

i've also come to notice the nights she does go in, doesnt' throw a fit, truly just lays there and either sings to herself or just calms herself she does go to sleep, eventually. its never fast, it can take up to two hours. which mostly its crying, screaming i hate sleep, revving herself and pushing herself to stay up, than ofcourse wehave the other nights whereas she's super hyper. which in past i use dto allow to an extent the singing jumping writing for hours, recipes music notes songs. yet i've stopped allowing her all that. i make her lay in the bed.

docs told it's classic bipolar her internal clock is backwards and off as many bipolar kids. hard to wake in morning, they dont' click into the world till mid afternoon. that's her to the T. so we tried melatonin, all the natural junk etc. to help promote the sleep and also assist in hindering the bed wetting yet obviously nothing works.

 

[AnnieO]

Have you tried letting her read for a while?

I used to have a SUPER hard time getting to sleep. Reading helped. The older I got, the easier sleep got. But... I'm still a night owl.

 

[Jena]

yea we've tried it all. yet when it comes to peeing the bed i really wanna hit nail on head. i can't imagine her with her period and a pull up and pad on that's just craziness. i thought ok 12 will hit it'll stop. yet it didnt. my cousin wet bed till she was 12. so i thought maybe.....

 

[AnnieO]

OK... So when she self-calms, she's OK?

 

[donna723]

Could the bed wetting just simply be caused by her problems getting to sleep? It could be that she's up so late that when she finally does get to sleep, she's completely exhausted and sleeps so soundly that she doesn't wake if she has to use the bathroom?

 

[svengandhi]

My son wet his bed till he was almost 17. We used DDAVP, which was a nasal spray at first and then became a pill. We didn't like that the side effects were so relatively unknown, so after a while we only used the medications if he was going on a sleepover (they were a lifesaver!), if he was at his grandma's or if we were going out and woulldn't be home. We got in to a routine. If we "walked" him to the bathroom and told him to pee, he would and then he'd stay dry the rest of the night. However, he would pee by 12:15 if we hadn't walked him... After he was 12, only H walked him. It was upsetting enough to be a bedwetter, but to have to be taken to the toilet by mommy as a teen boy... He never woke up when he peed, so the doctor thought it was that he was a really deep sleeper and wasn't getting the signals.

difficult child should go to the bathroom an hour before bed and then again right before she goes. You should limit liquids (I do this for myself) after about 8 PM and she shouldn't eat spicy food at night.

 

[Jena]

hi

that is exactly what i do, yet she's very defiant so she sneaks drinks and food throughout the night. i need to sleep. anyway i'm sure we'll figure it out somehow...... i think sleep study will help.

yet i'm glad she's working past her anxiety in the social department somewhat. that's kinda big for her after what we've been through. we're both doing it, i'm reconnecting with-old friends and she's following my lead. it's just a small step yet a solid one

 

[AnnieO]

I have a suggestion, just 'cause you have so many things going on and as you said, you do need your sleep.

Let the drinks and food in the middle of the night, and the bedwetting, go.

If difficult child is concerned about it, she will ask for your help. Or, alternatively, you can sit her down and say, look. You don't wet the bed when we do A, B, and C. You're 12. You're old enough to take charge of this. If you do X, Y, and Z, knowing they will make you wet the bed? It's up to you. Me? I'm getting some sleep.

Give it back to her.

 

[Shari]

FWIW I have a teen neice who is wheelchair bound and incontinent. She has to do the pad/pullup thing, and her parents made it just a non-issue for her and she's handled it well. The pullup is nothing more than her "underwear". I wouldn't stress about that part...you have enough troubles...no need to borrow any.

Wee wets the bed, too. Every night. I have 4 sets of sheets and the county agency gave us about 8 waterproof washable bed chucks. Its a pain in the rear, but its not EVEN on my radar at this point...even with things going smoothly, I'm not up to tackling that one yet. Step's got a good suggestion in letting it go.