Hannah Updates

Sleep study

Hannah and I had an Upper Airway Clinic visit the week of Dec 11. They asked about her medical history and lots of questions about our bedtime process and how she sleeps, if she snores. After the brief questionnaire and checking her vitals, the doctor said he really doesn’t expect the study to show anything! However, he did say sleep apnea can show up at any time - which I did not know. I assumed apnea showed up when our kids were young - not the case. Which is why we would do the next study in about three years. 

Sleeping/Re-training

Before summer vacation (!) we had been doing a good job of getting out of Hannah’s room before she fell asleep to stop the bad habit of laying with her until she fell asleep. Well, vacation threw that in a tizzy, and we reverted to old habits. Which in turn I think has caused Hannah to wake multiple times in the night simply for comfort. 

Look, I like cuddling my kids, too, but waking up 2-3X a night just to put your kid back to bed is not healthy for any of us. We’re making baby steps to get her more independent. We’ve started simply sitting in her room, not acknowledging her, and letting her get to sleep on her own. 

A few times we try to leave the room and if she comes into the hallway, we don’t say a word and walk her back in. She cries and I feel bad, but for our family, it’s what we feel will help us all get better sleep. Hannah is smart enough to whimper “potty” behind the door to let her out. It only works 1-2 times then she clearly does not need to potty again!

Potty

Hannah has been communicating fairly well to go potty - we also regularly put her on at certain points in the day. We had a few days before Christmas when she woke with a dry diaper! While I feel we’re ahead of the average Down syndrome schedule, we’ll still be initiating an intensive toilet training on Friday the 29th - New Years Day! It’s not easy for us to find 3+ days to stay home and stay locked into the bathroom with her, so this is our first pass. 

It’s going to be difficult probably for Mommy & Daddy, mentally and emotionally! 

Speech

We touched base with our therapist at Cincy Children’s - we haven’t seen her since early September. She was super happy with how far Hannah has come and is very verbal. She said we don’t need to check back in until summer when we may ramp up to keep up the momentum!