More night sweats

More problems with Millie not sleeping last night – or, more accurately I think, with her not waking up.

As usual, about an hour after she went to bed I heard her crying and went into see what the matter was.  She wasn’t as sweaty as she had been on previous nights, but that may be just because I heard her and went in sooner.  There’s a lot of thrashing around when she’s doing this crying, so perhaps that’s what’s making her so sweaty…?

Anyway, the Lovely Melanie was out with friends last night leaving just me on solo watch, so I went in to see what the matter was.

As I said, the problem is less that Millie’s can’t sleep, more that she can’t seem to wake up properly.  Once more I found her thrashing around quite a bit and wailing – not really crying, as there were no tears, but certainly grizzling very loudly.  And the real problem was that it was impossible to get through to her – despite cuddling her, talking to her softly, talking to her loudly, even pretending to drop her (which is surprisingly effective!) she just carried on writhing, kicking and moaning incoherently.

It took almost 15 minutes to get any sense out of the girl, to get her to calm down and drink some water, plus another ten minutes after that to get her back into bed and back to sleep.  Seeing your normally chatty, smart and happy little girl like that – and being unable to do much about it – was pretty unpleasant, and I confess I even began to think about a gentle slap to the cheek to try and wake her up.  That’s how worried I was getting!

It’s as though she was trapped between sleep and waking, unable to quite make it fully to either state.  Very odd.

But, anyway, we eventually got her calmed down, and I sat with her for a while stroking her head, the same as I remember my dad doing to me when I was little and ill or upset, and, just like the last couple of times, she was quiet for the rest of the night.

I asked her this morning if she remembered waking up last night, but she just smiled a slightly embarrassed smile and said “no”.

Amber’s been learning more words, too.  She now knows Millie’s name, although she calls her Lay-lays, and will come storming up to her, lean in really really close and say “Lay-lays!”  It’s so sweet!

Not quite as sweet this morning, but still kind of sweet, was the screaming competition Amber and Millie had.  It’s a fairly regular event, to be honest, but got so competitive this morning I was worried that Muriel next door might call the police!

Those girls have got some lungs on them!