Because of her condition, Layla is also unable to communicate so she can’t explain how she is feeling or tell her parents what she needs. Understandably, this makes Layla feel very frustrated and her parents upset that they can’t always help. Layla’s mum Emma was also concerned about the effect all of this was having on Layla’s development.
Carwyn, one of our Sleep Practitioners, provided a listening ear for Emma as she explained what issues the family were facing and how they were affecting the whole family. Emma completed a sleep diary which allowed Carwyn to understand the pattern of Layla’s sleep and to come up with a plan to tackle her disturbed nights. He talked Emma through the techniques that they could try to improve the quality of Layla’s sleep and explained how to put them into practice, providing on-going support and guidance.
He also advised Emma to take Layla to her GP for a check-up because she was snoring in the night and this can indicate breathing problems which can affect sleep.
The support that Layla’s parents has received from Carwyn has really helped the whole family.
Emma told us: “The help, support and guidance that we have received from Cerebra has made a massive difference to our lives as we now have methods that we can use and have learned the best way to implement these into Layla’s routine. It has been so reassuring to get really good guidance and support to help both Layla and us as a whole family. It has been really nice not to be judged and questioned about anything.
It made us feel very relaxed knowing that Carwyn had taken the time to get a full insight of Layla and the problems we were dealing with. We receive regular contact and support and were also told that if we required anything between appointments that we could contact at any time and they would be very happy to help.
We are now also much more aware of the other services that we can access for Layla, which is greatly appreciated.”
If you’d like some help with your child’s sleep our Sleep Advice Service can help.
This story takes me back to my son’s early years when he never slept more than 2-3 hours at a time, with at least 3 hours awake between sleep periods. The school psychologist had another mom whose daughter had had this problem, and she told me it had resolved when her daughter was 9. My son was 4 at the time — this was NOT comforting. In our case, fortunately, he learned to walk when he was 6 and after that he slept fine — I guess he just needed to be physically tired, although maybe neurological developments led to both the walking and the sleep improvement. In any case, my heart goes out to everyone with this problem. (My vacation fantasy was checking into a hospital and being put on catheters and tube feeding so I could just lie there and do nothing at all!)