Following on from the last post and the difficulties of transitioning through holidays, I will catch up on what we did over half term. If you read one of my earlier posts, you will see I had something planned for every day. This is a rarity as normally Charlie doesn’t like to leave the house much, it’s very controlled and Charlie led when we do leave the house, and I like him to have a decompression days too. Decompression days are days where he can be at home and process the previous day/following days events, and are particularly helpful if you have an anxious child that has many sensory needs and melts down often due to sensory issues. We have had many many days/afternoons/evenings where we have had to abandon our plans or paid to get in and left 10 minutes later or been in a situation where my older children have had to jump in to make sure everyone is safe. We have definitely had some scary times.

So the previous plans were:

Sunday - Staunton Harold
Monday - Bluebells farm
Tuesday - Calke Abbey
Wednesday - Pumpkin Carving with friends
Thursday - MOT car.
Friday - Aunt and Cousins
Saturday - Halloween
Sunday - Birthdays

I did write this out yesterday, but I accidently deleted it! Nightmare. Anyway, other than Tuesday, which we didn’t get to Calke Abbey, our week planned out exactly as we wanted it to. Unfortunately, Calke Abbey is still only bookable tickets, and although we are members of the National Trust so it would of been free to go, I just couldn’t manage it. Getting Charlie up and out the house is sometimes just too much for one person, and sometimes it’s just not worth the battle. So instead we went to a garden centre called Garden King around 20 minutes drive away and we went on the pumpkin walk there and a little walk around the Christmas displays. Unfortunately, there wasn’t very many pumpkins so it is now on my list for next year to visit there for the start of pumpkin season.

Although it may look like we’ve had an idyllic stress free calm half term, don’t be fooled. Because of the trip to see Charlie’s aunt and cousins, we actually had such a rubbish night’s sleep on the Friday. This is because when days are like that, and very busy Charlie doesn’t always process it there and then and instead during the wind down time at bedtime he will process the day’s events. This means bedtimes can be absolutely manic. And then there was Halloween, which along with Charlie visiting his father for the day and the transition between 2 houses, I had decorated our house ready for Halloween which was a massive change for him even though he doesn’t cope well with change! But because we couldn’t go out for Halloween I wanted to bring Halloween to him, naturally Saturday night was his birthday eve, so he didn’t sleep all night! So that was 2 nights on the trot, then Sunday was his birthday which was super busy between present opening and going out for a meal and then knowing he was going back to school after 11 days off he didn’t sleep again!!! What a nightmare. I’ve had to really resist the habit of putting him into my bed to get some sleep, as I need to break it, or I just don’t get any respite. My bedroom has to be my safe space for me.

I will definitely do another blog post on sleep as it really is one of the toughest parts of our life. I’m due to do some eating disorders training soon, all knowledge is power.

Georgina x