Eczema and sleep - how do you behave?

[greencybermummy]

Just interested in how different people treat their children when they wake a lot through the night due to itching and eczema.

Are you able to be sympathetic to your child at any hour in the night?
Do you tend to them straight away or do you leave them a bit?
Do you have any tips to pass on regarding sleeping success?

My DD2 (nearly 4) goes to bed well and tends to sleep the first part of the night til 12 or 1 then can wake every hour from then or can do another chunk and wake 4 ish then 6ish. She is totally suited up but scratches through her clothes and rubs wrists and ankles together or rubs mittens on the side of her face. She crys and moans when she wakes.

When I go in she sometimes asks for more cream which invariably ends up with more shrieking because to put cream on her hands involves getting her partially out of her suit and she then wants to scratch all over. She does tend to go back to sleep pretty quickly as a rule after an episode.

We did get into a bit of a bad habit where I would get into bed with her to get her back to sleep then at some point later I would wake up and go back to my own bed. This keeps the peace and lessens the crying in the early hours which is something which really gets to me and I can not tolerate.

Sometimes she will creep into our bed and then tends to sleep really well (but I don't!). Some nights I loose track of how many times I have yo-yoed between her bed and mine.

We have tried numerous prescribed anti-histamines/sedatives for night but they don't seem to work for my DD.

Part of me thinks some of her waking is now habitual but I don't know how to break it without leaving her to cry and that is really, really hard for me.

Please share your experiences.

Sorry to hear you are having such a tough time with DDs eczema. I have a 6mo who has been suffering with it for a couple of months now. It unsettles her sleep a lot and some nights will wake hourly, 7 till7 (or 9 to get more sleep). Its a bit different because of her age but I am sympathetic always- she can't help it. If she is waking and eczema isn't playing up then I'm not so soft! But on those nights it's bad I cope by swearing more and worse as I fall out of bed to trundle into her room. When I get to her cot though I can't help but feel sorry for her. Hope you get some support on here from pe

Oops, pressed post by mistake- using phone in bed,,,

From people with similar aged children. I'll also be interested to hear what they do and how they deal with it over night.

That sounds really tough for both of you :(

Could she sleep on a mattress on the floor next to your bed, thus being close to you without actually being in your bed?

Is she wet wrapped at night?

We have been in the same position greency - ds is nearly 5, and has been a bad sleeper in pretty much exactly the way you describe, since he was tiny. I think he probably has never fully learned to sleep well, so that even when his skin is in a good phase, he still wakes in the night.

However, his skin dramatically improved around about his 4th birthday. Could have been due to age, moving house, discovering food allergies, or just chance of finding a good combination of creams, but it was a dramatic difference within a few months.

Now he is no longer bandaged every night, and we do get the occasional full night of sleep!!! So there is hope .

Dh and I decided that since ds2 was a good sleeper, we would go with the flow as much as we could with ds1, to try and help him sleep as much as possible (because his behaviour and mood was so much better with a fuller night's sleep). Dh and I took it in turns to share with ds when necessary when his skin was bad, to pretty much hold his hands to try and prevent unneccessary scratching. Ds3 came along in September, and as ds1's skin was improving by then, we have done more sleep training, which has been tough, but worth it, eg returning ds to his own bed whenever he comes through to us. It really was necessary with the three, just to oreserve sanity, but we never really left him to cry as such, as we didnt think it was fair on him, since he had never learned to sleep properly. The returning him to bed seems to work, but really, until the skin improves, I dont think there is a huge amount you can do, other than get someone to give you the odd night's relief!

Sorry if this has been really long, but its been possibly the most significant thing that has affected the whole family about ds's eczema/allergies.