Hi all -
OK - dd is 3 and ds is 15 months old. Let’s deal w/ DS first…
DS has ALWAYS been a great sleeper. He’s my predictable boy. Whenever he had rough spells w/ naps or nighttime I could always figure it out – a new tooth, illness/fever, milestone (walking, etc…) About 10 days ago, DS got his vaccinations including the flu shot. He’s never had problems w/ any of his shots before (maybe a low fever but that’s it!) He had a rough night (woke up every 4 hours) and then he woke up w/ a 103 fever. He was up 3 times that night, but we knew it was b/c of the shots and the fever. The fever passed the next day. A few days later, (after battling poor naps for a few weeks (going from 2 to 1)) we dropped his morning nap. He adjusted pretty well. His current schedule looks like this:
7am - wake up/breakfast
9ish – snack
11:45 – lunch
12:30-2:30 or 3 – nap (yippee!!)
3ish – snack
5:15 – dinner
6:30 – bath/pjs/ bedtime milk snack (downstairs in the kitchen)/ brush teeth
7ish – bedtime
Since his bout w/ the fever, DS has had either problems going to bed or night wakings (or both in the same night! But not usually that bad)– lots of crying. We’re having to go back in and calm him down and we try really hard to put him back in his crib so he can fall back asleep on his own. He’ll go back to his crib peacefully, then 10 minutes later he’s standing and crying again! Some nights it’s no problem, other nights it’s a big problem. Then there’s the night wakings. Some nights he’s up at 1:30am or (like last night) he’s up at 3am. It’s almost always between 1-4am tho (but there has been the occasional 10:30/11pm night waking – basically at the end of any 3-4 hour sleep cycle). Sometimes it’s once for the night and other times it’s 3 times! DH used to be able to go in and just calm him down and then put him back down in the crib after just a minute or so of holding. But in the last week DS would be awake again after 10-30 minutes!!! It’s awful. We’ve tried giving him a few minutes to see if he’ll go back to sleep on his own (and he has done this a few times) but other nights he wants DH. And then b/c it’s so late and DH’s been in there 3 times already he will just hold him and sleep in the chair in DS’ room. I know it’s accidental parenting, but sometimes we all need the sleep!!
And into that my DD (3 yo). She started a new classroom at her preschool (back to school!) and since then she’s had more night wakings as well. Bedtime is okay – some nights she will call for us a few times before she goes to sleep (have to potty, heard some noise, daddy, etc…) and other times she’ll just play in her bed until she falls asleep. But almost every night, she’ll have a night waking (or 2 or 3) where she’s screaming for us. And there’s been a few nights where BOTH of them are screaming at the same time! (or they just ping pong back and forth and we’re bouncing around from room to room!)
I know DD’s transition at school is probably the culprit…and we have to be thankful that she’s not coming out of her room at all (she just screams from her room for us to come to her).
But DS is troubling me. I’ve been looking at his teeth and can’t see anything coming in – but I know that might not mean something’s NOT coming in. It’s just so strange. He’s SUCH a good sleeper and he’s really capable of sleeping very independently from us so it’s very troubling to have him wake up in the middle of the night (multiple times!!!)
please, any suggestions?
