“It’s time to close your eyes. It’s time to go to sleep. It’s time to say good-night to Mr. Sunshine. I’ll see you in your dreams. I’ll see you when you wake. But right for now it’s time to say good-night to Mr. Sunshine.”
Lullaby sung to my son when he was very small while rocking him to sleep at night.

I wish night-time was as easy as it was when the kids were smaller but unfortunately as I wrote about it the other night “anxiety” has become a very unwelcome guest in our home. For the 6th night in a row we have battled the internal negative thoughts, carried away, fear filled, anxiety ridden, jittery, breathless, panic and I have to say “anxiety is NOT welcome here!”. It is bad enough that I have challenges keeping my own anxiety at bay but then seeing in my children is absolutely heartbreaking. But here’s where the difference for us lies:

• I understand and feel the magnitude of my child’s struggle each night
• I have my toolbox filled with ideas and creative thoughts
• I am passionate about getting us all to a place where panic will enter our bodies and fade just as easily as any other thoughts
• I am relentless and in the end the “anxiety” will not prevail; peace and calm will

Each and every night that I sit by my child’s side is another night that we open up the toolbox and find something different to use.

Be Back in 15 minutes?

Tonight, we again began the night with “be back in 15 minutes?” which I automatically know is a cue for help. But this evening we started it off a little differently. Since it has been the 6th night in a row I recognized that he needed something to just calm him down. He figured out the other night that when he clenches his mouth he can not relax so I had him open his mouth and try to clench and he really couldn’t. He is learning lots of coping methods which is fantastic but he hasn’t had a peaceful sleep in a good couple nights and I can tell he’s worried about that on top of everything else.

So I took a trip to my local vitamin store and I picked up a product that I have heard others use as well as a neighbour who is in the medical field. I bought a bottle of Hyland’s Calms Forté™ which is a homoeopathic preparation “For the temporary symptomatic relief of simple nervous tension and sleeplessness.” It is meant to just calm the system down and I have heard from numerous people that it works well. He took on about an hour before bed and I have to say that he did seem much calmer and in a better place. He sat in bed for a while and relaxed and he was good for about half an hour. Then the teary, jittery voice emerged from the bedroom and we were back to our realistic thinking and distraction. He described to me what happens when that “anxiety” is like a tumble weed and when we talk and do realistic thinking and he uses other mediums to distract his attention the ball gets smaller until it’s gone. Great analogy buddy! He wasn’t as weepy tonight and wasn’t as scared. He told me he was in control. We gave him one more pill (you can take up to three at a time) and he lied back down. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like using any sort of drug traditional or homoeopathic and I have no intention of keeping him on it for an extended period of time but some times you need something just to take that edge off so that clear thinking can prevail. A few more nights of realizing that he’s in charge and his confidence will grow.

In the meantime, I just checked on him not long ago and thankful he is sleeping. He has been up until at least 11:45p.m. each night so closing his eyes before 10:30 was great. I’ll see what the verdict is in the morning but I had to share our evenings with you. On my Facebook group we’ve had quite the discussion about sleeplessness and here I am trying to calm our fears. Let’s hope it will be a quiet night for everyone with some much needed healing and rest.

Image courtesy of the image creator Danilo Rizzuti

Here’s my disclaimer: ” I am not a medical professional so the ideas that are involved in this post are merely my own experiences. If you choose to use these or any other products I mention it is advised that you seek the advice of a medical doctor, naturopathic doctor or pharmacist before taking any medication.”

Originally posted at “Raising Socially Anxious Children Blog”