DeeDee ... thanks for the tip about the Autism center! I am finding a lot more useful information about all of this here on this board than any doctor or therapist has ever been able to give me!
The Psychiatrist we're seeing is at the Children's hospital in Chicago but it's only an intern since seeing a REAL specialist would take even longer. But at this point I was willing to have just about anyone do a basic eval rather than wait any longer. Depending on what she comes up with the next time we see her, I might be pushing for more or will want a re-evaluation done in a few months because he's changes so much in very short intervals. One of the biggest ... well, THE biggest issue we have is sleep. DS4 was always horrible sleeper (I mentioned to his OT when he was close to 2 that he spends 2-4hours in his crib jumping up and down every night trying to get himself to sleep and she said it was all sensory ... I do NOT buy into that) ...his sleep got better last fall for about 3 months and since December it was all downhill. We went through couple months of him being up past 3am, sleeping 4hrs a day and when he'd fall asleep at a normal time around 8-9pm he'd be up two hours later and stay up all night! Pediatrician couldn't figure out anything other than along the lines of "wouldn't want to be you" ... we tried Melatonin, which didn't work at all, tried Hydroxyzine, which helped a little but not much (he was able to fall asleep around midnight instead of 3am) and he started getting very irritable so had to take him off of that. Then I tried Melatonin again 4 weeks ago and surprisingly it's working! ... for now! When I tried not giving it to him, he was up all night, when I tried lowering the dose, he woke up at 2am and was up till 10pm when he finally crashed. So, really the main reason for contacting the Psychiatrist was the sleep issues because it throws off everything and everyone in the house.
And now DS2 is starting to have sleep problems too! He's been up till 2am most nights the last 7 days! Went from needing 12-13hrs of sleep to needing about 8 maximum.
which brings me back to my original question about the pre-school. If DS4 goes back to his crazy sleep/no sleep ways, he'll be impossible to wake up in the morning for school. How do you wake up a child that was up all day and all night and finally crashed at 5am for school at 7am? (I have tried all kinds of routines, removing toys, rearranging room, painting room different colors ... just about everything there is to regulate one's sleep and none of that worked so thankful for Melatonin while it's working at the moment!)
