Are we helping or hindering?

[aidenmc]

I have posted on here a few times lately about ds who was finally sleeping independently, not waking at night and sleeping slightly longer overall over Christmas. We did this using gradual withdrawal. It took a long time, but finally worked. Then we had a major bout of SA after we all returned to work, school, daycare etc., and a couple of teeth (he has a terrible time with teething), and now a cold. At first he had a great deal of trouble separating at sleep times and we were back to being in the room and putting a hand on him etc. With me, he would be really upset if I didn't. This has improved a lot, but we seem to be dealing with a lot of discomfort now, as well as overtiredness. HIs sleep has been a mess for the past couple of weeks. He wakes anywhere from 1-5 times in the night, sometimes wakes for 2+ hours, his naps are often short, and he often wakes early (4:45 this morning).

Occasionally he will still fall asleep calmly, on his own. He did this last night, but then was up about 6-8 times, 4-5 of which we had to intervene. Often, though, he is so restless and uncomfortable that we will put a hand on him, rub his back or pat his bum to 'help' him get to sleep. When we let him go on his own, no these occasions, he either takes forever to get to sleep and/or ends up quite upset and we help him out. Our main reason for doing this is that we want him to get to sleep early enough because he is already often overtired, or we don't want him to be so when he finally falls asleep as he just wakes early from naps and in the morning.

So here is my main question: Are we just making things worse by helping him through this period? Should we forget about him falling asleep too late and push him to fall asleep completely on his own for every sleep right now? Of should we wait until he is feeling better. We know he can put himslef to sleep and back to sleep. The thing is that it takes forever for those teeth to come in. He has 2 more to go, including the one that I can tell he is working on, then his 2 year molars. It may take a while for that to be over. To be honest when I look back at my question I don't know how comfortable I would be pushing him too hard when he is so fussy, but it can be a fine line between helping a little and helping too much.

[PeepersMom]

wow VERY good question.

I myself am in the middle of just 'letting it go' and letting PJ work it out on his own.  No CIO, but not going crazy by rocking him to try to get him to sleep earlier in the night - that is our problem.  It doesn't seem to work very often, and so he is still loosing the sleep anyway.  I have been saying for 6 weeks now he is reorganizing his sleep, but it seems to really be taking him a while to get it all worked out!

I will be very interested to hear from experienced mom's.

(What is it about those July 2005 babies anyway??)

Meg

[Colesmom]

i agree, good question becky.  It took from September through December for Cole's first year molars to come in   The last was barely through when his first incisor made an appearance.  And I saw the tips of the other three last friday (the 12th) and they still aren't through.  His teeth seem to take a VERY long time.  I keep reading in books and on this site "you'll have a few rough days".  what I would do for a few rough days...and not weeks, months.  I know that I am helping cole too much, and this is the issue, but I too don't feel comfortable doing sleep training during this time because I honestly feel like it really really bothers him

And I think I read somewhere that teething can make them gassy?  Nothing will help cole's tummy these past 10 days.  Gripe water, gas drops...tooting away, it must be so uncomfortable.

anyhoo, you're not alone.

meg-love your tagline "too excited to sleep".  I'm with ya on that one!

[imsmum]

When my dd was having such a hard time transitioning down to 1 nap, I would do the same thing--stand there with my hand on her (sometimes for a long time) to help her settle--for the same reason you are.  Especially with the 2 hour wake ups, I realized she was trying desperately to sleep--we would get 10 minutes or so of quiet--but she couldn't get through all the sleep phases and would wake herself up.  So if i stood there and it took her only 1 hour to settle I figured it was an hour less of overtiredness that she would have to deal with the next day.  If there is cumulative overtiredness and can take them a while to get out of that hole.  So in the meantime go with slightly early  naptimes, super early bedtimes and yes, intervening as necessary at night until you see some improvement in the overtiredness and nw's.  Once that happened we started GW/ less intervention as tolerated.  

ps. not sure if you're using pain meds at night but some lo's seem to get wired on Motrin  

[LeesMom]

Hi Becky,

Sorry you are going through such a difficult time right now... you are definitely not alone. I am certainly not the authority on this, but we have been experiencing similar issues with our 15 mo. old DD who is teething and struggling with SA. I too went back and forth about whether to help her to sleep (and we were/still are doing a lot of "help" with this) or insist that she fall asleep independently. We are 3 weeks in with gradual withdrawal and honestly are only now seeing some progress. I think that it was very important with our DD to do what we could to help her get past her overtiredness (she was originally taking 1 short nap a day, waking at night and not falling back to sleep, waking early, etc.). Once she finally caught up with her sleep (this took a few weeks   unfortunately) she began to sleep all night again and generally take decent naps as well. I also feel like it would've been a losing battle trying to make her fall asleep by herself, because she would just stand and cry in her crib (even with me sitting right by her crib but not putting my hand on her back) and I know she would've outlasted me. I can't remember where I read it, but recently I read that when you're dealing with an overtired child, they can definitely outlast you as far as crying and refusing to sleep is concerned, and I personally found that to be true. IMO, even though it will definitely take some time, if you can help your DS just to catch up and hopefully eliminate the overtiredness, things will improve. Of course, this is coming from someone who is still laying on the floor by my DD's crib with my hand through the crib bars so that she'll fall asleep. This is definitely an improvement over what it was though as she has recently been sleeping all night and often has 2.5 hr naps!!! One other thing we've been doing differently is that my husband now puts our DD to sleep at bedtime. I had ALWAYS done this, but things did also drastically improve once he started. I don't know why, but she always got more wound up with me doing it. Just a thought. Good luck

[aidenmc]

It is nice to hear that someone else deals with gas during teething! NO that I would wish it on anyone   Aiden has been gassy virtually since birth. I know that he has been teething off and on since 4 months and I would say it is about 3 weeks per tooth - no kidding! I spent a lot of time and money trying to getto the root of his tummy troubles. I go from thinking he is allergic to food and I am poisoning him (we went on a no wheat, soy, dairy diet for a few months way back - it was really tough and didn't help much) to being convinced it has to do with teething. I definitely think it is the latter. Aiden also had reflux and has been off meds since a year but I really think it act up again with teething. The gassiness, though, can be really hard, especially when he goes to bed without having had a poop that night. He wakes every time he passes gas. It often seems like he can't and he rolls around, sticks his bum in the air etc. I think that was part of his problem last night. Lately I have been tryingto keep his diet simple - mostly avoiding things like tomato sauce and spicy things. I think it helps with the reflux but the gassiness issue has me beat. Nothing seems to help!

I know whatyou mean about July 2005 babies Meg! This is ds #2 and I thought he would be a better sleepr than #1 was. He didn't sleep through till 15 mo, but that was because we had no clue! Then comes ds #2 and despite our best intentions we ap'd and eveything just to get him some winks!

LeesMom..I think I will continue as is based on your post, but will focus on getting him to bed earlier so as to catch up on sleep. Funny, what you say about your DD and your DH. DH was the answer to Aiden's not falling asleep independently. He completely took over the sleep during the holidays as ds is always more independent with him. I guess it is something about our role as main comforter...Atill there are some times, when ds is sick that it is me or no one. I have to do much more helping when I am in the room than dh does. Unfortunately, due to dh's work schedule he can't do all the sleeps anymore.

[yaya]

i'm no expert but i would say help him through this perios if he's overtired then once he's settled into better sleep worry less if it takes him a long time to fall asleep, make sense??

[aidenmc]

It is so mice to get so many replies so quickly! Thnks everyone! Imsmom, or anyone, any suggestions on how early to bed. Typically he is asleep by 7 or 7:30 (I usually aim for 7). Ds has just woken up from just under a 2 hour nap and it is 2:20 now. He was up at 4:45 for the day but many times during the night, although no extended wake ups. I would like to try for a 6:30 bedtime (as in asleep by 6:30). Any thoughts?

[imsmum]

Sounds good.  The occasional 6:30 sleeptime has been a lifesaver for us in the past. 

[aidenmc]

Well, last night did not go so well. He was pretty restless and didn't et to sleep until 6:40. Still, it was a bit earlier. He woke after a couple of minutes and the monitor wasn't on so when I heard him he was wailing! He was back to sleep by 7. Then he woke at 8:20 (he hasn't woken this early in months!). He cried and screamed for about 10 -15 minutes, then tooted and went back to sleep. He was up again 5 minutes later and wasn't back to sleep until 9:30, then woke again 10 minutes later! . NOthing would settle him and he just screamed and rolled around. Poor guy! I am assuming it was his tummy as he would pass a little gas, fall asleep then wake again. He woke again at 11:30 then not till 5:30, for the day. I was fearing he would be up avery 1.5 hours so I guess it could be worse. Why can't this guy be comfortable during sleep?

[PeepersMom]

Becky, do you know why he is tooting so much?  I know you thought is was reflux before, but still seems a little excessive to me.  Is he lactose intolerant?  is he constipated?  Painful gas could be a culprit here. 

Maybe too many veggies late in the day? 

Poor little baby boy!!

Meg

[aidenmc]

This has been a problem on and off since he was born. It always seems worse when he is teething but I often suspect it is something else. The doctors said that he just had an immature digestive system. We had him off all sorts of things for a while: dairy, soy and wheat. It didn't seem to do much. I am going to take him off milk again and try soy. He did have more than usual yesterday (he won't drink regulary milk but had some in cereal, had some flavoured milk and some yogurt). I go back and forth between feeling like I am overreacting to thinking something just isn't right! Maybe it is a lactose intolerance as opposed to a milk protein intolerance. THis is all I feel I can do right now. It is very frustrating though.

[PeepersMom]

Well, all babies have immature digestive systems.  That is why they spit up.  Some babies worse than others.  I think we discussed his symptoms of reflux which we think he does have.  But I am not sure that gas is a symptom of reflux BUT it can be a symptom of food intolerance.  And food intolerance can cause painful reflux.  See how that is a circle effect?   

PJ had dairy intolerance AND was allergic to soy.  (also reflux)  The way I figured out he was allergic to soy was b/c he had a lot of painful gas and the gas was REALLY foul smelling.  It was bad, like make you eyes water bad. 

PJ also toots a lot while fall asleep. I know b/c I rock him as part of the wind down.  Sometimes he notices it, sometimes it just passes through LOL but he never ends up crying b/c of it and it doesn't seem to disrupt his sleep.  That is what makes me wonder about Aiden. 

If you think his gas is pretty bad smelling that is something you could mention to his doctor.  That actually was the thing that made PJ's ped perk up.

Good luck

Meg

[aidenmc]

I really don't know what's going on now. Aiden almost fell asleep in the car on the way home from Montessori. I managed to get him home and a little food into him during our wind down (I can't skip that or he gets quite upset and won't settle). Well, he started fussing in the crib then it gradually went to screaming which went on for about an hour. He was making his legs go rigid and I thought maybe he was constipated and still dealing with gas. He was also putting his hand in his mouth, sometimes making himself gag, it was so far back, other times just on his front teeth. I know one tooth is making its way through there. It reached the point where he was just screaming and also begging to come out of the room (only towards the very end of the hour). None of my normal tricks worked (eg. rubbing, patting, singing). Part of it may have been that he just worked himself into such a tizzy, but why? I ended up doing what I haven't done in ages, which was to nurse him to sleep. I doubt he will sleep for long.

As for the gas. Sometimes it is really foul (as are his poops sometimes), but other times not. Usually it is bad if he is late for a poop. I spent a lot of  time during the first year trying to sort out this problem. We did have him off those foods but he still had reflux. The gas comes and goes and it was always hard to find a link to foods that he ate. As of today he is off dairy and onto soy. We will see if that makes any difference. I know with sensitivities you have to get every bit out of their systems, and that often soy intolerance goes along with dairy.

The thing is he also has a cold now with a very runny nose. DH thinks that the extra mucous (on top of that from teething) is causing the gas. Or he may have a sore throat (although he doesn't seem to have a fever or much of a cough). I guess al I can do is see how he is later and maybe go in to the doctor. Thanks for your help on this. It is good to be able to bounce stuff off everyone!