Noticing Subtle Changes

I'm trying not to get ahead of myself with Raquel being on medication, but I've got to say that I am noticing little things that I would really like to believe are directly related to the Depakote.

For starters - her naps. These have coincidentally gone from roughly 45-minutes per day to 2 - 2 1/2 hours. And she sleeps hard. I used to make background noise because she'd wake up if the phone rang, the trash pick up came, or because Gabby was playing loudly in her room. Not anymore. When she goes to sleep, she's down for the count. Instead of tippy toeing around the house, I've been able to go about doing things as usual.

Because of this, I am assuming that she is also sleeping heavier at night, especially since she is given a dose right at bedtime. This morning, she woke up at 3am because she needed to be changed. Anxiety set in because once awake, regardless of the reason, 3am means she's up, I'm making coffee, and doing my best to keep her quiet so everyone else can sleep. But this morning seemed a little different to me and once I changed her, I put her back in bed, rubbed her head a few times, and back to sleep she went. I was shocked.

The other thing I'm noticing is a change in her meltdowns. They are shorter in duration, more manageable and she is easily redirected. Yesterday I ventured out to the grocery store during a very difficult time - right before nap. As soon as we approached the entrance, she started in and I headed back to the car not wanting to deal with it. But then I changed my mind - I only needed a couple things and knew that I wouldn't feel like going back once she woke up hours later. So I told her to stop it, that we would go really fast and be home soon. And she stopped. Her teachers commented on this today when I picked her up. She had one incident but they said she snapped out if it after just a few short minutes and didn't escalate. That is wonderful news. The school week is off to a great start.

I know we are at the very early stages of all this, but am really thankful that she hasn't experienced any adverse reactions so far. I'll continue to keep my fingers crossed and pray for a positive week.