11 month old DS still waking EVERY EVENING for hours - PLEASE HELP

[JB160706]

This is my first post on this board and I'm really hoping someone can help me, or give me some insight, or advice.

This is probably going to be a long post so if you have the time, please, bear with me, thanks!

My son is now just over 11 months old, and I will give you a little run down on his life so far.
He was born naturally, and from day 1, was a more sensitive baby to his older brother, who was a dream baby in every way.
He had "colic", so lots of cramps and even after 3,4,5, 6 months it was still a nightmare to feed him, he would often be up at night, sometimes it would take hours to settle him and then he'd cat nap for 20 mins and be up again.
He was constipated and we tried a number of things and now that problem seems to have sorted itself out.
He was still up with cramps, wind and reflux symptoms at night/in the evenings, right up until maybe 7/8 months. I know he was in pain as he used to cry in his very high pitched voice, pull up his legs, pass wind, burp, hiccup, etc.
Long story short, the first 6-8 months were a nightmare.
After 9 months, he was still up every evening from say 10-1 or sometimes 2 on a bad night. He would wake up crying as always, and then we'd take him downstairs where he would seem to build up to full scale crying, and then he would visibly relax and we'd take him upstairs to bed, where he would fall asleep, no problem.

Now he is 11 months old, and we are really not sure if he still has problems with his digestion or not. We think he does, but that it is not as intense.

Every evening, without fail, he will go to bed no problem at 7:30, fall asleep within minutes with his pacifier, and sleep peacefully until around 10:30 or 11pm. He then wakes up, crying really loud, and doesn't stop until we take him up. The minute we take him up, he starts crying. We take him downstairs into the living room and one of us stays up with him until 12:30, or 1am. During this time up, he is squirming, sometimes he does a lot of gulping and the odd time he will get the hiccups. He also squirms and passes wind, and sometimes lets out very loud sudden cries, as if in severe pain, but then he will be fine again a few mins later. So we suspect he still has cramps and/or reflux symptoms. BUT we don't know.

We have tried : putting him to bed earlier, putting him to bed later, keeping him awake all day for days on end, pick up put down, staying in a darkened room with him for a few evenings to see if he was just getting up for fun, not taking him out of bed...

Because he is up for anything from 2 to 4 hours in the eveings, he is absolutely exhausted during the days, and is cranky and unhappy in the mornings. He brightens up after a long morning nap.

His routine is like this:
7:30am Bottle
8:00am Breakfast of porridge
8:30am Morning nap can last for 2-3 hours, depending on how the night has been. Sometimes I cut his nap shorter to see if I can break the habit in the evenings, and have done this for a few days but it does no good and we just have an unhappier baby
11:30am fruit
12:30pm lunch
13:30pm bottle
14:00 Nap for 1 to 1.5 hours. He often misses this nap as he is a bit restless.
15:00 Out and about
18:00 Dinner
19:00 Bottle
19:30 Bed and goes to sleep no problem
22:00 - 01:00 - Up, sometimes full of beans and all on for playing, sometimes crying his eyes out and seems to be in great discomfort, squirming.

So, I hope I have not bored you too much. It is just that on a family visit recently, several comments were made (very unhelpful) by my very old fashioned parents (of the tough love school of thought), about how spoiled etc my DS is.

So, have we spoiled him?

Does anyone have any insights or experiences?

THank you so much for reading.

[JB160706]

I'm afraid maybe my post was too long for people to read! Sorry - am still hoping to see some replies though! Thanks!

[lilac83]

Hi there!

Looking at his routine, he's probably getting too much day sleep. At 11 months 2-3 hours per day should be fine and he's getting as much as 4.5! Of course you'll want to cut him down gradually so he doesn't get OT but I would think you should aim for 2X1.5 hour naps at this point. Perhaps for now wake him after 2 hours for the first nap and let him sleep an hour and a half the second nap. After a few days wake him from the first nap after 1.75 hours and keep the second nap the same and then a few days later wake him after 1.5 hours from the first nap keeping the second nap the same. You probably won't start seeing results until both naps are 1.5 hours (3 hours total day sleep) but you want to go gradual so as not to upset his internal clock too badly. I think this is what happened when you kept him awake all day and then he went OT extremely quickly and that's why the wakings continued. LO's do need some daytime sleep, but at this age the majority of his sleep should be coming from night sleep.

Have you seen a gastro for his tummy pain?

[JB160706]

I am not sure what you mean by a gastro - I guess it's a doctor who specialises in stomach problems?

[Arcticmoon]

Gastro = gastroenterologist and yes they are a digestive system doctor 

I just wanted to say I am new to these boards to, and my 9 month old is similar (though he has never been colicky or had much trouble digesting his food). We suspect his is separation anxiety related.

I agree with pp, your LO is getting too much sleep during the day. Around 2.5 - 3 hours is good. Some do 2x1.5 hours naps, but I do one 30 min in the morning and 2 hour one in the afternoon. If he is up at around 7.30am, he should at his age be able to get through until 9.30-10am before needing a sleep. He would then have 1.5 hours (which means he is awake at 11-11.30am). He should then be able to go through until 1.30-2pm and then go down for another 1.5 hour nap.

It's hard though isn't it, when they haven't had much sleep during the night? You want to try and "catch them up", but if they sleep too much the cycle repeats itself. So like pp said, gradually cut back on the naps.

I think you could also work on his feeds a little bit to help him with his tummy. There is a too small gap IMO between his morning bottle and his bottle at 1.30. I would suggest moving this feed back until 2.30. I would also suggest giving him his solids at 5-5.30pm rather than 6pm and then his bottle at 7pm.

By regularly spacing his feeds, you are allowing his tummy to digest one meal well before bombarding him with the next one.

If you have any questions, just let me know. As I said, I don't have a baby with digestive issues, but my sister did and I know spacing the meals has helped her LO.

[fiona1274]

HI,
My DD2 had relfux, not colic but she used to do the same as your LO at nights. Thankfully not every night as I think my DH may have moved out (he doesn't deal with deviation from the routine!!). She used to wake roughly 9.30-10 and be up for a few hours sometimes crying sometimes just bright as a button but what I realise now that I didn't then was it was all to do with her naps.
She is spirited and I don't think I ever appreciated what that meant until recently when I have started to manage her moods and habits a bit better. She has to have things changed very gradually and until recently when her speech improved and she can vocalise her fears/needs I didn't appreciate what she wanted or needed.
This is not to say thats what is happenning with your son but it does sound similar. When we sorted out our day sleep our night sleep just clicked and we haven't looked back, hopefully this will be the same in your case. DD1 was an angel baby and I never adjusted her routine she just slept through at 10 weeks, switched to 1 nap on her on and eventually dropped her day nap with no fuss, so working and tweaking it with DD2 was a complete mystery to me!!
Hope things improve soon.
Hugs
Fi

[JB160706]

Hmmmm, thank you all very much for the input and insights.

My lo is also a spirited little guy and he is also VERY sensitive.

And yes, I have sometimes let him sleep for ages in the mornings when he's had a bad night.

But I usually only let him sleep 1.5 hours in the morning and he will often miss his afternoon nap, because we are out and about, but no matter how much or little he sleeps, he is still up, same time every evening.

Last week, we took a flight to see my folks. We were up at 4am and he slept for 1 hour during the day and went to bed eventually for the evening at 7:30 - he was absolutely exhausted. BUT he still woke at 10:30, exhausted, but still up, very cranky and seemed in discomfort. It's at times like this that I think he still must have cramps or be sore, as otherwise, if he's been awake for so long etc, how can he not sleep through?

[lilac83]

Actually on days like you just described he's probably awake because he's OT. If he's often missing his afternoon nap, more than likely that's the problem right there. He's still too young to be able to function with only one nap, especially when it's early in the day. I would suggest picking a week or 2 when you can stay home and giving him both of those 1.5 hour naps.

[JB160706]

Hello Again,

Thanks again to all who have replied. It is good to get feedback, and especially from those who have been through something similar.

DS2 has often had days where he'll have 2 naps of 1.5 hours a day, honestly, we have tried absolutely everything. At the moment, he is sick and has a very high fever. Still though, he was up last night as usual from 10:30 but was really really exhausted and kept falling asleep in my arms, but then would wake screaming (his cramps I guess). I have been watching him carefully this week and I am almost fully convinced that he still has digestive issues. Have had him checked by paed etc but they said it is not bad enough for us to do invasive tests on him.

I just hope he grows out of it soon - we would love another baby, but definitely not while this is still going on - we would surely be divorced if we put any more stress on teh situation!!!

[lilac83]

Have you considered going to a different doctor? If he's up for that long at night from pain, I would say it's serious enough for something to be done. Do you give him anything currently such as gas drops or pain reliever? He may even have an allergy, wheat or dairy for example. Perhaps check out the food allergy board.