Long Days, Long Nights

Our hospital system has upgraded to a complex new electronic medical record, and I’m one of the volunteers helping colleagues learn and adjust to the system. Problem is, I’m sort of learning on the job. 

I was on call for this first weekend, which forced me to figure a lot of the system out on my own. 

But lack of sleep hasn’t helped. There were some late night and early morning pages. There were overnight awakenings by restless kids and needy felines. Hubby came down with some flulike symptoms Sunday afternoon. The weekend was kind of exhausting. 

Then, Sunday night, Babyboy got the stomach bug. He was up vomiting multiple times. I would hear him cry out with cramps, and then I’d run for the bucket… It lasted until very early Monday morning. 

So the week didn’t start off well for me. Sleep is so essential… I’ve been impatient and annoyed with colleagues at times. I blame being overtired. 

Lack of sleep may also explain our kids’ most frustrating and bewildering problem behaviors. 

Between the holidays, the playoffs, vacation, and our trip, the kids’ bedtime routine got all screwed up, and Babygirl was having phenomenal, brutal meltdowns almost every day. It’s been awful.  

She pulled an hourlong tantrum on my mom at school pickup, and we powwowed. We hypothesized that Babygirl’s horrible behavior was due to lack of sleep. 

So, last weekend, we committed ourselves to cleaning up bedtime. The first day, we got them down by 6:30 p.m. The next day, Babygirl was so sweet and wonderful. My mom commented that she was “a delight” and “a little angel”. 

We managed to stick to it for a week… And no tantrums. 

Even Babyboy’s behavior improved… No toileting accidents for the past week. 

Go figure. 

So, hubby and I have really, really been trying to get the kids in bed by 7 p.m. At the latest. Full disclosure, it helps that Babygirl has terrible eczema and itching. Benadryl is helpful for more than just allergies… And, we discovered Zarbee’s natural honey- based cough syrup, with melatonin. The kids were sick as stink, and this stuff worked wonders. I’ll be honest, with the slightest sniffle, out comes the Zarbee’s. Our very conservative pediatrician okayed it, and I Pubmed- searched it. Occasional melatonin seems okay for kids.

So, seven days: Babygirl is back to her sweet self, and we haven’t had to clean a Babyboy poopie mess. I’ll take it!

Now, I need some sleep, too…