Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Growing Pains

I came home Monday night around 10:30pm looking forward to my late night time to watch General Hospital after the house is asleep, but instead found Isabelle awake on the couch with my husband. Red alert - red alert! No child should EVER be up at my house at that time. I looked at Tim and he said, "It's her leg." It's all I needed to hear to know I would be up again during the night. Isabelle is five now but has been having leg pains sporadically at night for probably two years now. Based on my expert internet research, the diagnosis is Growing Pains.

To be honest, I had never really heard of someone having Growing Pains and thought that they were made up. When she first started having them my husband said he could remember having pains like that when he was little. Of course, I just assumed he was making up memories and a wimp. But alas, years later I do believe in Growing Pains.

It happens maybe every couple of months or so. Sometimes I find it's after she has a busy/active day but that's not always the case. You can hear her tossing and turning in her bed and moaning. She'll then wake up crying and say that her leg is bothering her. She is half asleep, in pain, and a sore sight. We usually try to just comfort her and massage her leg the first time she wakes up to see if that helps. If we're still up (like the other night) we'll bring her downstairs with us for a bit. Usually though, one time is never where it ends. She'll fall back asleep and then wake up within an hour later and the process repeats. I've learned now to give her a pain reliever after she wakes up the second time because if she's up twice she'll be up off and on the whole night. Clearly, I don't want her in pain but do try to wait on the meds because I don't want to give her medicine if I don't have to. Once I give her the medicine and she falls back to sleep she'll be fine for the night. She often doesn't even remember the incident during the night and is always fine the next day.

On Tuesday, she asked why there was a bottle of Motrin on her bed stand. I told her it was the same reason for the bags under my eyes :)

Does anyone in your house have Growing Pains? How do you handle it?

The culprits

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