[Daniel1959]

How often do you check your child at night. I check at 12:00 am and 2:00 am most of the time. If things have been going real good for a while I might just check at midnight. He usually has a snack and bolus at 8:30. I was just wondering what was the normal routine.

Dan

[belyro]

I don't have kids, but my parents used to check me at 11:00 and 6:00. Also often at 2:00 or 3:00, depending on how the 11:00 one was.

[JediSkipdogg]

I was a huge pain as a kid, so my parents didn't check me at night. Unfortunately I was on NPH then and quite often I had insulin reactions at night if I didn't have a large enough bed time snack.

[ProudMOM]

Either my husband or myself checks our 15 y.o. son every night at 2:00 a.m.
He is very active in sports and blood sugars can be somewhat unpredictable with his activity level.

[samsmom]

I check my son when he goes to bed (8 p.m.) and then I check him when I go to bed (12 p.m.) if he needs a correction at that time, I will check him 3 hours later. If he is low, I treat the low and check on him an hour later......If I find that for a few days he is waking up high, I know that it must be a rebound high and I do some overnight checking, every other hour...the next day to the other hours......its a pain in the butt, he is growing so much lately and this is messing with his numbers....when he was dx at 15mo old, we checked him just about every 2 hrs at night......

shannon

[lgvincent]

I tend to check about 11:00, 12:00, 1:00, and 2:00 because my blood sugar tends to either drop or climb after 10:00 in the evening.

[Eri's mom]

I check Eri around 12:30, then around 3/3:30...and then when she wakes up at 6:45/7.I do that just so it's one less thing she has to do while running around getting ready(girls...ugh!) I WAS checking her every hour/hour and a half last week(and do when she is sick)...which was exhausting...b/c I was doing A LOT of corrections w/ her)...but now just those 2 times during the night.

[HollyB]

Yikes, now I'm kinda worried that we are too slack. We only spot-check Aaron once every couple of weeks, and check once or twice a night if anything odd is going on, like changing his basals, big exercise day, sick with erratic sugars, unusual waking readings or if he took a big bolus close to his bedtime and I want to make sure it doesn't send him low. I guess that can add up to fairly often, but I often get weeks at a time with very few night checks.

It is what I worry about when he heads out on his own. Right now, waking him in the middle of the night is like waking the dead -- I remember right after diagnosis having a panicky "OMG he's in a coma" thought. But no, he's just a teenage boy who sleeps hard. It's hard for me to picture him setting an alarm and waking up to check himself...

[Eri's mom]

I test Eri a lot b/c she's been sick a lot...especially since we moved back up north. I used to just check around 3 am(or it used to be 1:30 am when she was first dx'd). That was when she was 6.

[Type1Mum]

It depends on what Jack (12yo) has been up to. He is very active, so most nights I check b/w 2-3am, but when he's been veging out in front of the computer during the holidays, and his levels are good, I won't check him during the night. He has been growing v quickly since he was diagnosed (10cm in height since May), his insuling requirements are now starting to increase as puberty is starting to kick in, so I might need to change my checking regime. It really depends on the activity level during the day.

[right2fight]

I don't think you're too slack at all. At 14 your son should be able to recognize what's going on with his body. I depend on my son, who's 13 to treat himself and it's amazing how well he does. You know one day they do go off on their own, and our job is to prepare them.

[HollyB]

Yeah, thanks for that. He is really on top of things. He will come and ask me to check him if he's a bit worried about his levels at bedtime, so he knows when it's a good idea. It's more that he just can't make himself wake up -- but I think that gets easier once past the teen growth spurt. I hope!

[right2fight]

Hey Holly, I guess I'm fortunate, my son always has woke up when experiencing hypos, and he too is on top of his regimen. I'm proud of him. Instead of crying all the time, he has accepted his condition and learned all he can to manage it. While it's not always perfect and at times he consumes too many PB crackers while at school, over all he's doing great. I think we parents, sometimes do not give our wee ones enough credit. Believe me when push comes to shove they can do anything, especially if we BELIEVE!

Margaret

[Mama Belle]

I check my daughter pretty much the same way Shannon checks her son. It all kinda depends on how she is trending. If she is low or needs a correction, I set an alarm (or two, or three) to get up and re-check. If she is looking good and trending okay I check before I go to bed and first thing when I wake up (6:30 am). Luckily my daughter tends to wake up with middle of the night hypos, but seems less aware of early morning hypos. What worries me is that her dad (we're divorced) does not do this, in fact he checks her BG usually only once after her dinner and shot and that is right before bed. He won't check again before he goes to bed. I have talked to him about this until I am blue in the face and he doesn't seem to understand that checking her once at 8:30 isn't going to tell him much about where her BG is headed.

[samsmom]

My son does not feel his lows so we check him at night. The endo said that some kids just don't feel them. A lot of teenagers do not feel them either. I hope he starts feeling the lows but if he doesn't, I (or hubby) will continue to check him during the night. These kids have a lifetime to deal with this so what ever I can do to make it easier right now I will......

shannon