I can't SLEEP!!!

Two of my sons have ADHD.  And I feel that it is highly likely that my 4 year old has it too, but is not old enough that it really matters too much. 

One of the main symptoms of ADHD and ADD is sleep issues, as in trouble sleeping.  Mostly it is trouble falling asleep.  My older two boys have been doing a lot better with this issue since going on medication.  (Don't judge me!  That was definitely in the top 5 hardest choices I ever had to make!)  Last year before my now 7 year old was on meds he had a very hard time sleeping.  He whispered to me one night, as I was tucking him in, "Mom, I have a secret.  I think I am a vampire.  I never sleep.  I lay here in bed awake all night." 

My four year old, the one who has not been officially diagnosed with ADHD, has been having the most horrible sleep issues for over a year now.  I know because it started when I was about 7 months pregnant with #5.   It started with really bad nightmares.  It has changed and progressed to the point at which we are now.  He has horrible sleep habits.  Last year, Jason was working graveyards and I was pregnant.  Harrison would wake up screaming.  He would get in bed with me and continue to scream for up to 2 hours at a time.  I would wake him up by making him go pee, then put him back in bed.  That always made him even more mad.  He would then come back to my bed to attack me some more. 

 On some desperate nights I would lock my door and cover my head with a pillow while I sobbed with exhaustion.  A couple times I even called Jason at work (he is a full time ICU nurse) just to leave a voice mail.  He would answer, and say things like, "Why are you calling me?  I'm in the middle of doing a blood transfusion!"  And I would scream back, "Then, why did you answer the phone?!?!"  Then, he would hear Harrison's screaming and banging on my door in the background and feel horrible!  On the few blessed nights that Jason was home to sleep it was always interrupted by Harrison. 

Things are slightly better now.  I am not pregnant.  Jason is not working graveyard anymore!  (Notice I am more excited about the no more graveyard thing than I am about the not being pregnant thing.  I hate HATE graveyard shift!)  Harrison still wakes up every single night.  There might be one night a month that he doesn't wake up.  And recently he's gotten to where he doesn't wake Bennett up too, who shares a room with him.  Although at 4 am this morning Harrison did wake Me, then Jason, then Bennett.  Every night he whines over and over in the whiniest voice imaginable, "I want you mom, I want you mom, I want you mom......" It is not a good sound.  It is worse than waking up to the crazy buzzing sound that an alarm clock makes. 

 I asked our pediatrician (the ADHD specialist) for some sleeping pills for Harrison.  He suggested I try Benadryl.  But I'm too scared.  I am not using Ritalin, but you know Ritalin is a stimulant.  They use it as an ADHD drug because those kinds of things have a reverse affect on kids with ADHD.  I'll never forget the time I gave my 3 year old Glenn some Dimetap to make him sleepy before a flight, in which I was alone with him and baby Lily.  The Dimetap made him, restless, crazy and irrational.  That was a LONG flight. 

Two nights ago I walked into Glenn's room to find that he had unplugged his alarm clock AGAIN!!!  He's been doing that a lot lately, and I have to keep setting it again.  I was upset and he started to cry.  He told me he couldn't take it, and that the clock scares him.  I still don't know why, because he wouldn't tell me.  He said it was not because of the creepy green light it gives off.   He told me that he's been crying himself to sleep because he is so scared!  I was so surprised by this.  We had a LONG talk about this and how to deal with it.  At one point he explained to me why he sleeps so weird.  He sleeps with his whole body curled up on his pillow, as best as he can fit it.  I thought it was so that the dog could come lay at the foot of his bed.  He told me it is because he is so scared that if he stretches his legs out he will be pulled down his doom!  His words exactly! 

 I actually understood that because when I was his age I couldn't let my toes poke out of my covers because I was terrified that Chuckie and his Bride would show up and eat them.  This fear is completely unfounded.  I never even saw a Chuckie movie.  At the end of my long talk with Glenn I noticed a book on his night stand he had checked out from school.  It was titled, "Scary Stories for the Dark Only."  Well, well, well.....  No wonder you've been crying yourself to sleep.  He's been reading that in the dark with his little flashlight, in secret.  Not such a good idea, for so many reasons.  Well, hopefully he's learned his lesson.