I haven’t been on here in ages! I need help from my fellow mommies though….losing my mind, once again – lol
We’ve had a tough journey getting my DS on a regular sleeping schedule from day 1. After about 16 ½ months of madness, for about a month or so, we had it great. We could do a wind down, put him in his crib while he was still awake and walk out of the room. AMAZING! We were no longer prisoners for hours. He would sleep from 7:30pm – 7:00am. I thought was had finally made a turn for the best.
Around 18 months that all changed….again. We experienced some sleep regression where he would wake every night around 1:30am and be up for about 3 hours. He would be wide awake and wanted us in the room – preferably holding him. Luckily this only lasted about a week. Then he went back to sleeping from 7:30/8pm until 6:30/7am. Getting him down for bedtime became incredibly difficult again – we were prisoners yet again. The bedtime process for the past 2-2.5 months typically takes a good 45 - 75 mins after our wind down process. We do our standard wind down and once he’s in his crib, he won’t settle. He wants to be picked up. If we won’t do that, he wants to be touched (hand on the back, hand thru the crib slat, etc). He cries, he talks, he’s super restless. We’ve tried WI/WO and that doesn’t work for him. We’ve tried GW and that only has a little success after we’ve been in the room for about and hour and he’s so exhausted and drifting off.
Recently it’s gotten even worse. Yet another regression at 20 months? 4 nights ago he woke at 4am and didn’t go back to sleep until his nap at 1pm. That night he woke at 1:30am and didn’t go back to sleep until 4:30am. The following night he woke at 3:15am and didn’t go back to sleep until 6:30am. Last night he woke at 11:45pm and didn’t go back until 3:15am. When he’s awake, he’s wide awake. He wants the light on. He wants books. Most of all he wants one of us there in the room the entire time. The first 3 nights we tried to do whatever it took to get him back to sleep – picked him up, held him, rocked him, read more books, etc. Last night we decided not to pick him up. We were in the room the entire episode, but didn’t pick him up. He was extremely upset about it but eventually settled for a hand through the crib slat. Needless to say, we are absolutely exhausted. I’m hoping this is associated with some developmental milestone and be over tonight (a girl can dream, right?). I’m concerned about what to do when this all goes on and not setting any bad habits so he will get used to waking, calling out and us come running. Of course we want him to know we’re there but to be able to self soothe and try on his own first. He’s a really smart kid and I’m sure can manipulate at this point to get what he wants.
The good news is his naps have stayed pretty consistent through the craziness. For the most part, he goes down easily at naps and sleeps anywhere between 1-2 hours. He goes down around 12:45/1pm and if he’s not up by 3pm (or shortly thereafter) I wake him. We’ve tried pushing out his bed time by 30 mins or so (when we haven’t had the night/early wakes) and sometimes that has helped him settle more quickly at bedtime. I’d rather not make it later though. I’ve had to wake him in the morning the past few mornings. Tpyically he’s up by 6:45-7:15 but with the 3 hour wakeful periods, I figured letting him sleep a little longer can’t hurt. I’ve been waking him between 8-8:30 if he hasn’t already woken up. I don’t want to get too far off schedule as I would like to nip whatever this is in the budd.
Any thoughts or suggestiongs? Just “normal” developmental sleep regression stuff? When oh when will it pass. We are so so tired and haven’t a clue what to do during the 3 hour late night/early morning nightly stents.
Thanks for reading and any advice you have!
Daneen
