What in the world is going on with my 10 month old?

[fifure30]

 Hi,

I'm Sophie, I posted a couple times on these boards over the last summer I think. I got great help and am thankful these board exist, would be lost without them trust me . I come once again asking for support...


I read everything I could, I still don't know what to think. I am so sleep deprived anyways  , I can't think, period!


   My ds, Samuel, 10 months old, was sleeping great at night and for naps, up until 3 weeks ago. 12 hours at night and one hour nap in am and 2 to 2h30 hour nap in pm.

    He got his first 2 bottom teeth at 6 months. Then he cut 5 more teeth, within one week, 4 weeks ago. His 8th tooth  came through 4 days ago. Now, all these teeth, he cut without interruption in his night sleep ( we were blessed!) He would be the cranckiest baby during the day, have a horrible diaper rash and have irregular naps but his night sleep was pretty much unaffected by it. I am telling you all this because at first, everybody was telling me that the NW that started 3 weeks ago, were due to his last tooth. Now that the tooth is out and he STILL wakes up at night they tell me it must be his molars then .

Anyways... he woke one night around 9 pm ( he goes down at 7-7:30 ) screaming his head off. It took him 3 hours to calmed down and finally fall asleep, exhausted, on my husband. The only thing that kept him relatively calm was to walk him around the house. The tylenol never worked for his teething before but this time I decided to give him some  thinking may be he was in pain, he fell asleep 10 ninutes later ( was it the tylenol or just because he was exhausted? don't know ).  He's been waking up every nigth ever since, at first it was always in the first 3 hours of going to bed ( I thought, night terrors? ) but now it's more in the middle of the night. Most nights, he will settle himslef down but sometimes, I have to go in and pat him. On good nights, he wakes once but most nights it's 3-4 times now, sometimes more. Before he started to sleep through the night ( around 6 months old ) Samuel was the type of baby that needed just a pat or a hand on his forehead to settle himself back to sleep. Handling him did more harm than good. The pu/pd method just aggavates him, he pushes and screams and gets even more mad. He does use a paci to fall asleep and I thought may be the nw were du to him losing the paci but we tried replugging him a couple of times and it just wakes him up more and he cries even more.
 His pm nap has also changed, it went from 2-2:30 hour to 1-1:30 hour. He's always been good going down for sleep. He always fell asleep on his own and pretty fast also. Now his pm nap is becoming a problem. he takes sometimes 30 minutes before he will finally fall alseep. His last game now is to throw all his paci on the
 floor and wait for us to come in his room, him standing in his crib and giving us a big smile  . I know the paci has to go but we'll takle this one later.
 Last night, he woke around midnight and I heard him whine on and off until 2 am. By "whining" I mean more like a mantra cry, he's clearly not fully asleep, but it's like he's not comfortable or he's dreaming. I let him resettle himself to sleep when he does that and he usually can. But at 2 am I had to go in cause he was clearly awake this time and he was crying for real. I put the paci in his hand but he kept crying, I put my hand on his back and after 10 minutes he calmed down and fell asleep. I had to wake him at 7h30 this morning and it took a lot to wake him. The weird thing is...it's been 3 weeks of this night waking but he is still a happy guy during the day, he's not cranky or anything. You'd think he would be because of the sleep deprivation but no.
 I forgot to mention that I tried to put him down at 6h30 a couple times and the night wakings were better but he started waking earlier instead, like as early as 5 one morning, and not rested either.
 I also am trying to figure out if I introduced something new for food but I can't think of anything.

I know it's been a long post ( probably not that coherent either because of my own sleep deprivation! ), I know you guys have seen many posts like mine and I will keep on searching the boards. But please, please, someone tell me chances are he will go back to being a good sleeper again! I am so scared it's going to be like this from now on! I also have a 5 year old little girl I have to take care of and, as you know, it's hard when you are so sleep deprived and frustrated!

Here is his shedule:


7-7h30 wake and bottle

8h30 breakfast

10h00 to 11h00 nap

11h15 bottle and snack


12h30 lunch

2h00 to 3h00 or 3h30 nap ( used to be until 4h00 or 4h30 )

3h30 bottle

5h00 or 5h30 dinner

6h45 bottle

7h00 bed


I forgot to say that we are taking him to the doctor tonight to rule out ear infection or other ilness. We'll keep you posted.



Thanks for your time and help!

Sophie

[Bryony]

Hi Sophie, HUGS!

It's quite common to get NWs start around this time - they have a dramatic reduction in the amount of daytime sleep they need at around 10-11 months and this can make things go a bit awry.

So I suspect it's his routine that needs a tweak, and not his teeth, which I think is what you are thinking too, right?

I note that his midday A time is quite low, only 2hrs - is that right?  Yet his morninng A time is up to 3hrs, and his last A time is 3.5hrs?  His amount of daytime sleep (2-2.5hrs) sounds about right though.

By the way, is he waking himself at 1 hr for his morning nap, or are you waking him?

I am thinking he needs a longer A time before his PM nap, which will move it later and then he won't be so overtired at bedtime. But probably the same amount of daytime sleep. Did this problem start when his afternoon nap started getting shorter? I am thinking it may be leaving him a bit overtired at bedtime?

Sounds like he is doing great though if he can often resettle himself - try to think of it as good practice getting himself back to sleep when he wakes up, which we all do.  And if you were doing great before and he can resettle himself, I am sure it won't be long before you get back on track 

do make any changes slowly though if you are goign to adjust A times... otherwise it can backfire if they end up too OT to nap well

HTH

Bryony

[fifure30]

 Bryony, thanks so much for responding, I appreciate it. It just feels good knowing someone's there listening to my whyning .
Anyhow, we went to the doctor last night and nothing is wrong with the little guy. She did not really have an answer for us, she just said sometimes they start waking up again for no apparent reason.
 I agree with you that it might be a shedule adjustment. I never believed it was the teeth. He poped five the week before the NW started and his sleep schedule did not change a bit.
 I read the nap forum last night and it looks like he is trying to reorganised his naps may be?
 
 Bryony, I have to wake him in the morning after one hour otherwise, he will sleep for 1h30 hour and his pm nap will only be one hour. That makes for a very unpleasant afternoon until bedtime because of him being overtired. He gets 3 hours of A time in am, then 3 hours between am nap and pm nap, and finally between 3.5 and 4 hours until bedtime ( it all depends of when he wakes from pm nap). I did try many times in the past 3 weeks to let him sleep as much as he wants in am ( since I always have to wake him for that one ) and then let him sleep his hour in pm ( never have to wake him for that one ) and try to give him a little cat nap late afternoon but he won't hear of it.
 Last night, he was so exhausted, I put him to bed at 6h40 ( right after we came back from the doctor ). He slept through the whole night and I had to wake him at 7h40 this morning! But today, he is very cranky and clingy, go fifure! We'll see how it goes in the next few days.

Thanks,
Sophie 

[Bryony]

Yes I have to wake Katie in the morning too, otherwise she will sleep all morning and only have a short PM nap. So if that works for you then stick with it!  Maybe you could extend the midday A time very slightly and/or put him to bed a bit earlier so that the last A time is not so long?

Hope that this clingy day doesn't mean he's coming down with something or that more teeth are coming!

Bryony

[fifure30]

 Well, Sam's been clingy today also and cranky. Can't put him down almost and can't get out of his sight 
I heard him moan/mantra cry only twice last night and it did not last long, he resettled himself well. He's very tired these past 2 days. I don't know if his body is trying to catch up with the  sleep he lost over the past 3 weeks or if there is something else going on. He has not stopped chewing his fingers ( and everything else for that matter ) since his teeth came through and he's been  sucking on his paci like crazy during the day also, he usually does not need it during the day. He's got a very runny nose. His 8 teeth are out, how long does it take before it starts to feel better once the teeth are out? I can't imagine he would start pushing his molars out already, he's only 10 months old and the doctor did not say anything about any teeth coming. It feels like this baby has been teething since he was 3 months old 

Sophie 

[Bryony]

I read somewhere that teeth hurt most the few days before, the day they come thorugh and a day or so after....

Teeth are a right old pain aren't they!

B

[fifure30]

Ok , well I thought I'd give an update.

  Sam's had a so-so week since my last post. Some nights he slept through no problems, other he'd do the mantra cry 4-5 times a night but I did not have to go in. That was good! But then 3 days ago, he woke at 1h30 am and cried and cried. I'd go in and settle him down. Each time I'd go in, he'd be standing up looking at the door waiting for me to go in. He'd calm down as soon as I'd put him down but as soon as I left he'd start again  . I got so exhausted and frustrated, I took him in bed with me, he calmed down but did not get a good night sleep, having someone with him in bed seems to make him more awake. Then he had 2 wonderful days ( I told my husband he's like Sybil, he's got multiple personalities    ) He was pleasant, playd well by himself, I was shocked ( Samuel's been high needs pertty much since birth ). He also had 2 great nights where I did not hear a peep! Then last night, I put him to bed at 7 pm, he starts crying after 10 minutes, then stops then cries again 10 nminutes later for a little bit, on and off like that. After a half hour I went in to make sure everything was alright ( he ALWAYS goes to sleep on his own pretty quickly at night, I never have to go in), he was standing in his crib crying, I put him down and he stopped. I left, 10 minutes later he starts again, I gave him tylenol thinking it must be his teeth. I settle him down, stay in there with my hand on him and he falls asleep until midnight. Then, he starts the whole thing again. I give him tylenol thinking he's due for another dose anyways. Tylenol did not work, I kept going in and out, putting him back down. He stopped crying everytime I'd put him down but he'd lift his head up once in awhile to make sure I was still there. Each time I left, thinking he was finally asleep, he'd start crying after 10 minutes. I was so exhausted, I finally decided to take him to bed with me around 4 am. Of course, he did not sleep well and neither did I.
  I don't know what to do, I don't know why suddenly he is behaving like this. If he was in pain he would not stop crying no matter what I did don't you think, except for the tylenol? Could it be a bad case of separation anxiety? How do I deal with this? how long does it usually lasts? Pu/Pd does not work with him, it just makes shim more angry and hyper. If I stay in the room, he won't fall back to sleep. He's just so stubborn. To think that a month ago, nothing could disturb that baby at night, no matter how much noise we'd make. I think I will try to write down every little details of his routine during the day to see if there is a pattern here.

Sophie

[EllenS]

We just went thru/are going through this!  It was partly about needing her routine tweaked, and I think partly about her being ready to start walking (she's starting let go when she's cruising).

The other issue seems to be hunger - either she's having a growth spurt, or when her dinner falls too close to bedtime, she does not finish her milk and then is up crying every 10 minutes at bedtime (just like your last post).  When I give her more milk, she conks out (not nursing to sleep, but finally able to go to sleep).

I'm trying to get her naps timed right so that she has dinner after her PM nap but it is not too close to bedtime milk.  I think we may need to go from 4 milkfeeds to 3.

HTH!

[fifure30]

EllenS,

 Thanks for your reply, when I am more rested I will try to think of a way to tweak his routine, or something.
Last night was a nightmare again. It's getting worse. We are so sleep deprived ( me, DH and DS ) my eyes are dry and hurting this morning, I feel like my head is in a fog  . I think we might have some major accidental parenting at this point. I know now that for the past 3 nights he did this, it was because he just wanted us in there with him. Unfortunately, going in there keeps him from sleeping well. I don't even talk to him ( make things worse ), I just put him down, keep my hand on him and wait til he is "asleep" and then leave.  Everytime we left the room, he'd start crying after few minutes. At the end, I did not even have to put my hand on him, just knowing that I was in the room calmed him down. But we get so tired, (it can go on for hours) he ended up in our bed again. He never goes to sleep very deeply when we sleep with him, he'll talk, he'll toss and turn etc. He wakes a lot just to see if we're still there. Anyways, can't really think right now. I don't know what we'll do but something needs to be done, I'm slowly going towards ppd again and that's the worse feeling.

Sophie

[EllenS]

Sounds like could also be some separation anxiety - I know there are threads on the board about it!

[Lilah'sMommy]

It sounds very much like separation anxiety to me.  What if you moved into his room on a blow-up mattress for awhile, slowly moving it towards the door?  You say he settles but then starts crying again when he realizes you've gone, so maybe staying, at least for a time, might help?  What do you think?  Worth a try?

[fifure30]

Lilah'sMommy

 Yes, I will  try this, I do think it is separation anxiety now. I was telling hubby yesterday taht I should put the futon in his room and sleep there, then just saw your post. Now I'm convinced and will try that  We'll see what happens.

Thanks,
Sophie

[Lilah'sMommy]

I really hope that helps!  We're about to try something similar when we finally bite the bullet and nightwean DD2.