The Unknown- Bowel Management

When it comes to having a child with Spina Bifida there are a lot of unknowns. A couple of months ago Oliver started  having rough nights, that consisted of scream for 6 plus hours in the night. It didn't matter what Josh or I did to try to calm him down, he would just keep on screaming. It wasn't just a cry, he screamed at the top of his lungs. Like his was in discomfort or pain. I felt so bad for him and so helpless as a mom. I was willing to hold him all night if that was what would help him calm down so he could sleep. At first we thought it was teething but I just felt that it was more then that. He popped two teeth before Christmas and he was a bit restless in the night but it was nothing compared this. When ever Oliver is a bit off you always wonder if it's a shunt malfunction. But he wasn't having any of the shunt malfunction symptoms other then irritable/ screaming. He also was only like this at night, as he was pretty much him self in the day, other then he was tired from our rough nights.  I felt like a walking zombie in the days with getting no sleep. We took one day at a time.  When I would talk to other moms about our situation they would say 'teething is rough'. I would think to myself this is way worse then teething. I'd take a teething baby any day over this. I always had a feeling it was bowel related. Oliver has been taking a stool soften since 9 months and we have slowly had to up his dose with the more solids he was eating. We were told that he needs to be having a bowel movement every day. Which he still was but there was the odd time that he wouldn't (once in two weeks).  We have him a suppository the one night when he didn't have a bowel movement. As soon as the suppository worked, he slept the whole night. Right then I knew for sure it was bowel related. I then started talking to other SB parents about bowel management. I was told it's a lot of trial and error to see what works for your child. So we upped Oliver dose of stool softened. This seems to be doing the  trick. He is sleeping through the night again. I wish we thought about trying this sooner. I feel at times that I know so little but we are trying to learn new things to help Oliver.