Well, I am finally having to take the child to the pediatrician. As I posted in another thread (before I knew to keep things together), the child has been having nasty sleep issues: waking up hysterical, wide awake, at the same time every night 11-12 of 14 days in between the over night visits. It stops about 3 days before the next one and starts again the night before. In summary, it's gone from pointing at the window, saying "hurts," before her language skills increased, to doing that and, "Momma...the man is gonna get me," to, "Daddy hurt," to three times before bed one night recently, "Daddy out there...gonna get me."
I phoned the pediatrician today at work and discussed this with them. I told them that I'm not sure if it's because of the change in routine between the two houses or what, but this has been going on nearly every night for a couple months and was happening sporadically for months before. We'd been dealing with it, the child and I. We scare away the baddies by saying "rawr" at the window. She has to touch the curtains nightly or won't even get in bed. When she wakes up, the more awake she gets, the more out of control she is...she hides under her easel or backs herself into a corner. She won't let me touch her and it's always centered around the window. Kids have nightmares and night terrors, but this is 11-12 of every 14 days.
We follow a routine and read before bed, do hugs, kisses, love yous, and good nights. We've tried even the "monster spray," as suggested by another member here. It's not going away. Once I finally get her calmed down, she lets me rub her back and sing or talk to her and I keep ensuring her that I won't let anyone hurt her. The family counselor says that, unfortunately, there's not much I can do about her trying to work things out in her sleep.
Now, the pediatrician asked me this question, "WHY is she spending the night there being that young (she is 2, now, and has been doing overnights for around a year, court order given when she was 10 months)," to which all I could answer was that I expressed my concerns, but it was court-ordered. Oh...and he never did make an appointment, once again, for him to address his concerns.
So, we're going on Thursday to check in with her nurse practitioner (her pediatrician is booked completely for awhile). I am hoping that we can figure something out something to help ease whatever anxiety is causing the issue because she and I are both exhausted.
Once we go, I am guessing this is probably some stuff I should share with the GAL. I did share with the GAL, awhile back, that the child had returned home from one of her first over night visits and was not only acting strange in other ways, but just started banging her head against the wall with no apparent reason other than frustration about something she obviously couldn't tell me about because she was too young. This should be something I share with the GAL when I return, yes? Especially considering that, since he has said he would be filing court papers for the past month and a half, we are likely to be returning to court whenever he decides to file.
