This is Korky in her bed, we put these bunk beds up before the big D came into our lives. I am 5'2" and I hate when it's my turn to do middle of the night checks. (I do those 2 or 3 am checks way more often than Daddy does since he has to get up and acutally leave the house to work) Korky is the younger sister and she loves being on the top bunk, the older sister loves being in her cave on the bottom bunk, there's no convincing them to switch. Notice the step stool, really it's an old broken chair, I pull it over to the bed when I have to do checks. See the shelf in the top right corner of the picture? It was orginally put up to hold stuffed animals, but if you look close you can see a stash of Juicy Juice and Smarties as well.
And this last picture shows the "low" stash, some Juicey Juice boxes, Smarties, and a box of chocolates that she got for Christmas.
Now, here's my question. How do you do the middle of the night checks? I read your blogs and nobody really mentions anything about the kid waking up when you go to check their BG unless they wake up first because they are feeling low or high on their own. I have to say that 99% of the time I go to check Kortnie she wakes up, I almost always try to check her without waking her, but she always seems to sense it and pulls her hand away. I've tried doing her toes but usually I can't get to them and if I can she'll still wake up. I've read where some parents can even do site changes while their kid is sleeping. So, tell me what am I doing wrong? I go in and open the case, I can get the poker ready, get the strip in the machine and grab her hand then it seems as soon as just the poker touches her finger she's jerking her hand away. Then I calmly tell her, "it's time for a check". Some nights she'll get up and just poke her finger and let me collect the blood on the stirp, then she'll lay back down and go right back to sleep. On those kind of nights she's usually "normal" or maybe a little on the "low" side. But then those other nights, she fights me, she's in a sleep haze and doesn't actually get her finger poked, no blood will come out, you try to help her and she gets mad, it's a fight and by the time it's over I'm wide awake and can't get back to sleep. Usually these nights she's high. Then there are the nights when I can go in and poke her finger and she never even wakes up at all. These nights I like because I don't have to wake her up, and I don't have to fight her, but they also scare me because I'm afraid she's low and that's why she doesn't wake up. Usually on one of these nights she is either low or super tired from a busy/fun/long day. Then there's dealing with the lows, sometimes its super hard to get her to drink down a juice box, other times she coherent enough that she can even decide if she wants juice or smarties. Dealing with the highs isn't bad, I can just use the remote to give a bolus, but if I end up having to get her up for a site change, that's not so fun.
So I guess what I'm looking for is some tips on how to do these middle of the night checks, maybe we can make it a blog topic, everyone plan a blog about tips for these middle of the night checks, or if you've done one already send me the link to it. I'm curious! Any tips you want to give, how do you deal with bunk beds? How do you deal with fights? How do you not wake up the other kids in the room? How do you do the check with out waking up the D-Kid? How do you deal with the lows? (Acutally I've read about dealing with lows in the middle of the night quite a bit, doesn't look like it's much fun for anyone) Please and Thanks!
Now one more thing, for my readers who aren't D-moms but maybe family or friends. I don't check her every night (GASP!) I know! However, I do have a way of deciding if I'm going to do the check, depending on lots of factors, what she ate for dinner and bedtime snack, how her numbers have been running the past few days, if the site is new or how long has she had it on, how old her bottle of insulin is, things like that. On a normal evening we'll check her around 5ish at dinner time, then again around 8 at bedtime, then Brian or I check her around 10 or 11, or whenever we are headed to bed ourselves. It's at that 10 or 11pm check that I use all those factors mentioned above to decide if I'm going to need to do another check sometime in the 1-4am range. I'd say I probably end up doing a 2-ish-am check 4 or 5 nights out of 7.
