A not so good sleepover

My son is in the 6th grade and it’s his first year at a new school. He’s very shy. A friend at the new school asks him to sleepover with 2 other classmates. They live 1 mile away and the parents seem nice but we hardly know them. We say yes , primarily because he has a CGM / Share. He’s done sleepovers before and they suck, but we try to make it work.

So he gets to his buddy’s at 5pm. They play hard outside. They eat pizza. They eat cake. We are trying to help him out with D management but he wants little to do with us. We see him going low and ask the Mom to discreetly tell him to drink a juice. Anyway, 12am roles around and they’re going to bed. We need to talk to him to get a lay of the land and to make sure CGM is calibrated and accurate. He’s terribly distracted with his new buddies. An hour ago the CGM went hour glass on us. On the phone, he tells us “sensor has failed”.

Attached is a chart of what his evening looked like.

Very active. Eating crap. .7 u on board. Parents we can’t ask to check him. Very shy kid. But hitting it off great with new buddies.

What would you do?

We told him to pack his stuff, we’re coming to get him. And that’s what we did. Packed his stuff at 12:30am and we picked him up with the other 3 boys going to sleep.

Man it sucked. Really really sucked.

 

Yep, without CGM working or another parent to check I would have done same thing. Stinks

 

That's hard, but under the circumstances was the right thing to do.

When DD was this age, we'd scope any sleepover invitations with the parents - we'd explain the basics of D management to them, and our need to have an idea about food they'd be eating and perhaps the need to get an overnight measure in.

People were invariably great, and would try hard to make things work. They'd revise plans for food snacks depending on what was needed, and would offer to wake DD to measure at a predetermined time.

All that having been said, there was at least one where we still had to pull the plug and do a late night pick-up. So I understand where you're coming from. I'm hoping the night (pre-bedtime) was otherwise great, and that things go better from here.. :cwds:

 

Yeah, normally I'd let it go with the carb guessing, but if there's a failed sensor and he's had a volatile day, there's really no other choice. Huge bummer, but you did the right thing. Maybe this will give him motivation to do a more careful job with carb counting or eat a little less crap or whatever next time, but a failed sensor is a failed sensor.

Like wilf, I give a quick diabetes 101 to everyone who hosts my kid, though he's only 7 and hasn't done sleepovers yet. I think people see us doing well and assume it's no big deal, but things can go south very quickly, especially at night.

 

Sorry this happened. Is he done hating you yet? You did what you had to do, and what most of us would have done in your shoes. Maybe to make it up to him have all the gang over as soon as possible for a do over.

Can I just say I HATE SLEEPOVERS? Diabetes or no diabetes, I hate them My kids are useless for the entire next day, day and a half!

 

Yes sleepovers in general are bad. We only know one child whose parents are willing and able to take on the responsibility fully understanding what that means. That being said the first night she spent there the alarm on the dex went off every 20 minutes according to the mom. It was not a fun night. And of course my daughter does not wake up to do her own night checks.

We have been training our kids to be ready for sleepovers. I wake my son up for every night time care and have both daughter and son setting the alarms on their phones so they can get used to waking to an alarm. They understand that for them to get sleepovers at houses or in places where there is not an adult who can take adequate responsibility they will need to demonstrate some level of responsibility and at 10 and 14 (newly diagnosed) they are not there yet but making progress. Having iphones has helped a lot and I am sure the dex share will help a lot too. I agree that a stable sensor is more or less a must.

The other side of the coin is we try very hard to be good hosts very often to make up for the lost sleepovers. Sometimes we are able to turn invitations around so that they take place at our house instead of at another's and I have told the parents of my kids friend's that they are free to invite their kids over to our house (not that that has happened yet).

 

How much does 1u drop him? For my dd it's only 20 pts so .7 u on board with the graph you show would have been okay. I think if all else were good I might have gone over and replaced the sensor and told them to wake up dd to calibrate in 2 hrs when needed. But I will say your ds being uncooperative would have been the deal breaker for me. I know it's all unfair but if my kid couldn't or wouldn't cooperate in their care in those circumstances they probably would be coming home and I would only feel a little guilty.

 

Ok, I'll swim against the tide. I think that unless you had a plan in place, in advance, for him to text you, call you, test at X time etc etc and he completely and utterly disregarded that plan then pulling him was a paranoid thing to do. What did you think would happen? I mean, yes, sleepovers suck for a multitude of reasons, D being one, but unless he has a history of seizures then I think it was too much.

I love our CGM, but I have a real problem with the idea that a type 1 kid can't be managed unless the CGM is on and accurate. People survived, dare I say thrived before CGMs and I think there's a real danger in leading our kids to think that if they don't know their exact bg every 5 minutes of every day then they are at grave risk of some catastrophe. If you were worried about a crazy low then order him to drink a juice before bed and leave another by his sleeping bag. If you are worried about him being high then he shouldn't be permitted to eat pizza and cake at a sleepover. Sleepovers require letting go of some control.

Hope you have better luck (and planning) next time.

 

Where things went off the rails is when he wasn't communicating back with you. Not that the sensor went bad.

 

I don't really know what I'm doing but...

My son stayed over for the first time this weekend. He had a big low early evening because he jumped on the trampoline - but I didn't adjust the pre--exercise insulin. That was at home though, not at his friends. He ate our supper, and then a second supper with friend downtown before they walked home. His 10pm bg was 289. I'm guessing it went up because of how late he ate. No correction but IOB. He was 201 at 2am and we left it alone (would have corrected at home). We planned for it to be a little higher though because of the walking home, being away from home, etc. He stayed. I don't know if that was smart or not now that I read this thread. In hindsight it was fine. He came home the next morning at 189 and corrected w/breakfast.

He does not have a CGM so the no sensor thing isn't something I relate too as being a reason to come home. Probably the big difference is that he is 13 soon to be 14. Those years make a significant difference at that age.

It's scary. I don't think you'll ever regret going with your gut and bringing him home. All the fun was over - he probably preferred sleeping in his own bed. Luke was happy enough to come home and eat breakfast here and than go back (small town - no big deal to do that). That was his plan actually, not mine.

 

I would have done what you did - I would have had him come home. It sounds like the only part he was really going to miss out on is the sleeping part, since they were going to bed at that time. Your son got to have a great time all evening long. That's not such a bad deal. He is still young - there are lots of sleepovers still to come. Looking at the graph, I would have been concerned too. He was having highs, but followed by crashes and just prior to the sensor going, it looks like he was coming down quickly. It's hard to say what was going to happen. I have 9 and 12 year old boys and I know how hard they can play, which can lead to lows in the night. For what it's worth, I think you did the right thing. But my opinion doesn't really matter - what matters most is that you listened to your gut instinct and acted on it.

 

I have to agree with Sarah. It is so hard to be at home and not know what's going on with bgs every 5 minutes. But what do people think kids with diabetes and parents have been doing for 40+ years without a CGM? We have used a CGM almost continuously since diagnosis 7 years ago. We rely on it heavily and my DDs diabetes care would suffer greatly without it because she learned to care for herself using it to her advantage. But there is no way a failed sensor would keep her from doing anything she wanted to do. And my fears and concerns wouldn't either. I worry that type 1 parents are becoming more fearful with CGM, Nightscout, and Share rather than less.

Perfectly in range bgs do not have to be the goal every single night of their lives. Sometimes the goal needs to be letting them be a kid like everybody else. Its really easy to make justifications for pulling the plug when managing something with D gets hard. Its a lot harder to make a plan to make them as safe as you can and then face your fears and let the situation play out.

Having said this, I try not to second guess another parents decisions. And you have to do what you think is right for your child at the time. Just don't let fear make your decisions for you.

 

I couldn't agree more. I am seeing a trend on FB of parents that have become so dependent on the CGM, and now the Share. It's a wonderful tool (we use it as well) but it's not the be-all and end-all.

Use this as a learning experience that technology can and will fail and that a back up plan needs to be in place to avoid this kind of situation.

 

When I said "it was the right thing to do", it was not just the failed sensor that prompted me to make that statement.

It was:
- "We are trying to help him out with D management but he wants little to do with us."
- "He’s terribly distracted with his new buddies."

That and the fact that the parents had not been briefed. In the absence of the CGM someone needs to be there to do that night-time check, and in this case neither your son nor the parents could be counted on to do that.

 

I couldn't have sent my child to parents that "hadn't been briefed"... and my child would HATE diabetes, and hate me more if I said yes to a sleepover and then snatched her away. Even if the other parents couldn't test, they could have supervised a test? and then relayed the results to you.. and then made a new plan from there.

 

If it was my son, I would have done the same thing. My son is 13 and does sleepovers at our house only. When he is around his friends, he pushes diabetes to the background. Boluses randomly, does nothing to handle exercise and adrenaline, doesn't call or text when he is supposed to, doesn't wake to alarms or phone calls, loses his PDM, ignores alarms. He simply doesn't have the responsibility to manage on his own overnight. And on a night that had two fast spikes followed by two quick drops and not havaing any real understanding of how many carbs could still be kicking in and how much insulin he randomly dosed, it would be a return home. In fact, there would have been multiple conversations/reminders ahead of time where we would have talked about how to handle it and what would happen if he didn't, so coming home wouldn't be a big surprise.

If it was my daughter, I probably wouldn't. My daughter is about as much his opposite as possible. She is diligent about carbs, bolusing, does temp basals, thinks about the impact of activity...basically, she just keeps diabetes in mind, or at least checks in with it every once in awhile to see what needs done. She sets alarms to remember to call. She would wake for a phone call. So, if it was her, we would make a plan and if she was going to be up another hour to see where that drop ended and she agreed to test when we call, she'd be okay. But...those spikes and drops are so fast that she'd feel like crap and might decide to come home on her own anyway.

All that to say that we are probably all answering based on the diabetes journey we are on - the one that we know, with the kids we know, and with the way we handle these types of things. Even if 90% of parents agree...or if 90% of parents disagree...it doesn't matter You did what was right for you at that moment in time based on what you knew. Diabetes is hard enough without second-guessing yourself. Have a sleepover at your house soon and invite those boys over - they'll have fun and you'll be able to be more comfortable.

 

DS had his second playdate away from home the other night. I instructed the parents how to test him etc. and it all looked OK. As I was about to leave I heard them say "So, do you want fruit punch or Coke with your pizza?". I realized the parents may need a little bit more education.

After that, things went OK.

 

I agree with this. Diabetes or no diabetes he disregarded what you had to say to him. I would say "listen, you chose not to communicate with us until your sensor went bad. If you had just checked in, we might have considered letting you stay, but since you didn't this was the consequence."

As Sarah mentioned, for us old timers here, we were able to manage sleepovers without the CGM (we got ours 8 years after diagnosis). What it required was communication. Communication with the child, and the host In fact, our first sleepover with the Nightscout, the CGM wasn't fully charged so it sucked all the life out of the phone and we couldn't monitor. So, my daughter went to the mom and asked her to text us. . Were they trouble free, not usually, but we made them work, and most of the time, our kids were asked back.

In the future I would have a plan in place ready to go. Write it out if you have to. Share with the host. Does it suck? Yes, but it's something we all need to do here.

The next one will go much more smoothly. Live and learn.

 

Our Droid with the cables has been sitting in a drawer since December...the last sleepover. I like the CGM, but I also don't want my daughter to think that she doesn't need to care for herself by just checking the screen. It's an amazing tool, don't get me wrong. But, sometimes it isn't accurate and I need her to know that. Especially with the lows. With the lag time, she sees the screen and tends to over treat.

I want my daughter to know how to care for herself on the fly. Lancing device broken...I don't need to test. Wrong! Take the lancet out of the device and use just that. Forgotten meter, don't test? Wrong! Look at your CGM and look at the trend. Decide how you will treat yourself.

 

I think it's different for parents who have never managed this disease without a sensor. Jack was diagnosed 7.5 years ago, and we got his sensor 7 months after that. So while it is true that kids have survived and thrived perfectly well without sensors, MY kid has not. And I've never managed him without a sensor. (Except for those first 7 months when I didn't know what the hell I was doing anyway.) I do know enough to know that the way I manage him with a sensor is different than the way people without sensors do things, and it just doesn't work without an operable sensor. If the transmitter died, and I had to do it for a few days, could I? Yeah. But that's different than leaving him at a house at age 11 with no one who is trained, overnight, after a big night of activity and tons of food, when he is tanking, with no sensor and no one to do a night check.

So, yeah. I think I would have made the same decision. It sucks, bad. But I would have done the same thing.