He's forgotten how to sleep!

[Daniel's mummy]

My ds is 8 months old and up til now has been an absolute angel sleeper.  has always gone to sleep easily on his own.  Has slept through the night from about 10 weeks.  He takes 2 naps in the day and goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps through til about 6am.

But 3 nights ago all that changed.  He has been waking up all through the night and is acting likes he's wide awake.  (Could he be overtired?)  He looks so tired but it's like he's forgotten how to settle himself to sleep.  Up til now although nightsh have got bad the naps have been unaffected.  But today I put him down at 9am for his first nap.  He babbled for a bit and then fell asleep, only to wake wbout 40mins later.  This is so notlike him.  He is quite obviously still tired but nothing I can do will get him back to sleep.

He's not teething. He already has 8 teeth through so we have learnt to read the signs quite well (we think :lol: ) and he's showing none of them.

We just can not work out what to do. If it is overtiredness then how the heck to do we get back on track.  Should I just do nothing all day (as in not go out swimming as I usually do on a Monday) to try to keep him understimulated or should I do stuff to tire him out to get him to sleep?

Please help.  This is driving us nuts.

[lil'monkey]

I know how you feel!  Since your lo knows how to fall asleep and is not teething, not ill, not really crying in the middle of the night, the only possibility I can think of is...could he be ready to stay awake a little longer between his naps? 

DD went through this stage along with the early wakings and short naps at around 8 mos too.  After ruling out all other possibilities, I decided to increase her wake time by 15 mins between naps and bedtime until the situation was resolve. 

What is your day like?  Try to follow his cues for the next few days to see when he is really ready to sleep.  HTH

PS  I guess that being a detective is also part of the job description!   :wink:

[Jaime]

could also be the beginning of separation anxiety - is he crying when he wakes up?  if he isn't i would wait him out before going to him.

if it is separation anxiety... we just went through this with naps.  what seemed to work was to soothe luke with my voice in the crib - tried this cause pu/pd make him furious.  when he would settle i would walk away from the crib. 

i wore a path in the carpet, but it helped him to realize that mommy always comes back when he needs me - and that just cause he can't see me doesn't mean i'm not there.

[branwen]

Hi Hazel

so sorry to hear that Daniel is off his angel track but the good news is angel babies always seem to go back :wink:

can you post your EASY routine?

also- what is the status on his tired signs?  have they disappeared or changed lately?

I am also curious to know if he cries out for you?  also- do you have to be the one to resettle or can dh do it...these things might point to separation anxiety more than something else.

[Daniel's mummy]

Ok so I take it all back!  I think it is teeth :oops:   We are beginning to wonder if he wants to have his whole set by the time he turns one.  This will be number 9 already :shock:

I put him down yest am for his nap at 9am (when I was writing the above post).  At about 9.40 he woke up.  I left him for about half hour then he started crying.  When I went in I could see his cheeks glowing in the dark :lol:   They were bright red and burning up all day.  And he has been doing lots of 'pain' crying and hitting his cheeks and mouth.  Poor little thing.

So now we know what it is we can work with him.  Gave him some calpol before he went to bed last night and he slept through til 5.30am  at which point he was ready to start the day.  We're beginning to wonder if he only needs about 10 hours sleep at night.  I'm not gonna fiddle with bedtime just yet.  We'll cope with teeth first.  But it may be that we end up putting bedtime back a but so he doesn't wake quite so early.

Thanks for you replies.  Much appreciated.