Fela was pushing and grabbing with his hands a lot immediately after he arrived. He pulled me into the kitchen, and took a bowl out then pointed to the tortilla chips in the snack basket. I said ‘later’, ‘tomorrow’ and asked him to be gentle. I decided to distract him by asking him if he wanted a cup of tea. I put camomile tea on the counter. He went over to the tea and put the hot chocolate on the counter then switched the kettle on. He went upstairs and beckoned me up with him. On the red settee, he didn’t want to remove his hoodie as requested but made the sign for ‘table’ which means he wanted a round of cards, so I brought the table and played a round of cards with him – he dealt into my hand, then I shuffled the deck, then he sorted them into a red pile and a blue pile, then we put the rubber bands around them and put them back into their container. He then had his small cup of camomile tea.
Fela was clearly excited and in a mischievous mood. When asked to remove his hoodie again, he kept pulling the zipper down and up, so I called Michael to exert some no-nonsense authority. He got him to remove his clothes and put his dressing gown on in record time, but he wanted me to help him tie his dressing gown, then pulled me downstairs towards the bathroom. Fela entered the bath at 21:30.
Fela was very slow doing his evening routine with repeated bathroom rituals. He finally got into bed at 23:00 and I applied tiger balm to his back, chest and forehead as I did last night. He had coughed briefly before getting into bed so I thought it would help to soothe him. The youtube fire crackling video was left on.
I next heard Fela at 4:15 so prompted him to the loo. He engaged in some rituals in the bathroom after passing urine then washed his hands and went straight back to bed.
I kept hearing Fela making grunting noises so I checked him at 5:00. The computer was flickering even though I had stopped the fire crackling and closed the screen. It was updating so I shut it down. I decided to apple the ‘No Knead to stress’ lavender and chamomile oil blend on his chest and back and forehead as I did not think he would want to go back to sleep and would therefore have a grumpy birthday.
*Ordinarily, any sedative massage oil or lavender oil on pillow should be applied before bedtime to give it time to get out of Fela’s system whilst he sleeps.
I next heard Fela at 7:15. Michael brought him apple and tea at 7:45 as he seemed disinclined to go to the toilet. After his apple, Fela requested to go to the toilet and spent a good 20 minutes at least in there staring and engaging in rituals. He eventually washed his hands, then I asked him if he wanted shower or water, he said water so we went back to bed and had his glass of water and tea. Then I tried prompting him to the shower but he requested ‘5’ and lay back down so I left him. It was now nearly 9:00.
When Zoe and Zoe Lou arrived, he was still in bed so we left him to sleep. We next heard him around 9:30 so Zoe took over and assisted him with his shower and morning routine. Fela was down for breakfast around 10:10.
*He seems happy enough but it may take him the better part of the morning to get the massage oils out of his system so he may be processing slowly. Also bear in mind that his sleep has been disturbed even though he was up once so it will be necessary to proceed with caution and patience, and offer him low stimulation activities and rest if necessary in the afternoon.
Arousal States – Start: 1 Baseline End: 1 Baseline Did his state change? No to Did he have a bowel movement? No Bristol score: Was Fela incontinent?: No Did he have vigorous exercise?: No – Why no exercise? Sleep shift
