Sleep Study.

Anyone that knows our family (even a little bit) knows that our boys are crummy sleepers. They both have different issues but they are equally troublesome. Our ENT recommended that Emmett have a sleep study last summer because he snored like an obese 80 year old smoker. And, just about the time that we had the sleep study scheduled last summer, he stopped snoring. So, I canceled it. Fast forward to now. Emmett snores intermittently. Not always, but when he does, it's loud and I can hear him stop breathing. He also sleeps a decent amount, but he ALWAYS seems tired. If I could lay down and take a nap w/ him every day, he would nap everyday. He's an extreme early bird. Goes to bed at 6 pm every night and rarely sleeps past 5 AM. Owen is the exact opposite (which pretty much describes their personalities in every way). He is an insomniac. He sleeps very little (for an 8 year old). He is up numerous times during the night. I don't think he demands a whole lot of sleep, because he never seems very tired. He fights bedtime EVERY single night. He functions quite well on 7-8 hours of sleep. This CAN NOT be normal for an 8 year old. Of course, he's far from a normal 8 year old. But in addition to all of this, he started wetting the bed again 2 years ago after NOT wetting the bed for 2 years. Weird, very weird. And, when all that started 2 years ago we saw a urologist, nephrologist, and psychologist (who said he was probably the happiest child she had ever met). The urologist said he had a meatal stenosis, which is essentially a webbing of the tip of the penis that will require surgery someday. But, she couldn't guarantee that the surgery would stop the bedwetting, so until he has to have it done, we're not doing it. Sorry, I'm digressing...the pediatrician said that kids can have bedwetting if they're having apneic episodes at night. So, that is why we scheduled sleep studies.
The day of the sleep studies we were to arrive at the clinic at 930 pm. Both of us had to go. One parent per patient. My mom stayed home w/ Henry for the night. As I said, Emmett goes to bed EARLY so keeping him up until 930 took so much effort. Owen never gets tired. He's up to 1130 pm at least a few times every month and would be fine staying up later. When Emmett is tired, he lays down and goes to sleep. Immediately. Wherever we are. So, it was an EFFORT to keep him awake. But, we did it. Once we got there they put each of us in separate rooms that are set up to look like bedrooms and put what seemed like a kajillion electrical probes on the kids. They had to have nasal cannula like probes in their nose (it measured CO2 output) and pulse oximetry probes on their fingers. They had to wear these things all night. Poor, uncomfortable kids. My night was not a good one. Our sleep technician was in our room what seemed like constantly. Emmett's probe came off constantly and they had to be reattached. At 330 AM, the technician woke me up and wanted me to change his pull up, because he said sometimes kids don't sleep well when they are wet. So, I changed him. The technician said it didn't help. We didn't let him go to bed until about 1015 that night, but he was up at 5 AM as always. The technician said that Emmett was really, really active in REM sleep and that's very unusual for children his age. He also said that he had a few respiratory episodes, but didn't really elaborate. There was also a camera in the room, so we were continuously watched. Kind of spooky. The whole test is scored based on the input from all of the probes. We won't have the results for two weeks. Eddie didn't have a lot of detail about Owen. His technician didn't give him any information and Eddie didn't ask any questions (MEN!). She did say that she could tell when Owen was dreaming. And, that it took him a while to fall asleep (not shocking....). We were out the door by 6 AM.