We’ve been living with diabetes since May. When we brought our son home as a newborn, we had an adjustment period, we had to adapt to another life. So I look as diabetes as bringing home the most brattiest unruly toddler ever and we’re adapting again. Mr. Diabetes likes to throw hissy fits at 2 am and go low. He has my son eating at certain times because he needs nph. He leaves little marks on my sons fingers and injection sites to remind us he’s here! He’s never predictable, just when every blood sugar reading is within range, he’ll throw another tantrum. He requires a backpack full of supplies and food, this is the size of my son and heavy. Mr. Diabetes makes our family a bigger freak show in public, we were used to it before because we’re sort of hippies, I’d wear my toddler in a sling and he’s in cloth diapers-we tend to stand out in Texas, so top that off with testing and shots in public. I may be a bit insane for referring to this as Mr. Diabetes, but I get up multiple times a night to test my baby and am very tired!
Hi, your son is adorable! Looks healthy, too, so you are obviously taking good care of him. I’m with you on the night checks. I do them and hope I am always able to do them. There is one night of the week when we can’t and I have been guilty of sleeping through the alarm due to exhaustion sometimes also. I set two loud alarms across the room from each other. I can say, after two years of this, your body will adapt to the lack of sleep. I now stay up until 2:30 or 3 am. I sleep deeper during the 3am to 6am period and will go back to sleep when she is on the school bus from 7:30 to 10 a.m. I am able to function well on this. If I had a preschool child, I would keep the child up later so I could sleep in a bit in the morning. And would then just put him in an afternoon session of nursery school. You have to get SOME sleep, LOL! Do you work outside the home? I hope not, or you may need to use another system. If working, hubby and you can trade off on the checks – you take one, he takes next and you can rotate – and then, of course, baby would go to bed early, not late. Hard to adjust, this being so new, and there is so much more to learn that can help you, but just thought I’d address the pressing problem of S L E E P…
thanx! I’m a stay at home mom so that really helps us out. My hubby takes over a lot during the day if he’s home (he works offshore) so I don’t work too hard all the time, it’s nice to have an extra hand around here!