screaming !

[travis's mum]

Hi I know this has been posted before but I didn't read it as it didn't apply to me. Well now I wish I had. Last night Ds was screaming as if he was crying, but when I went into him he had his eyes closed and seemed to be asleep. He did this at several times through the night.

I wonder why he is doing this and how is the best way to handle this? He hasn't eaten anything different, and our day was pretty normal.  We are going throgh a phase where he is waking to eat at night, do you think they are related?

How should I handle it? I didn'nt want to put the dummy in his mouth, firstly it's not nice if he didn't ask for it and secondly I don't want to start a habit.  I didn't know wether I should wake him so I just patted him but then he started to stir like he was going to wake so I stopped. Recently he has been finding it difficult to go back to sleep after he wakes at night, so I didn't want to risk it. After a few min he stopped.  But he did do this several times throughout the night.

Has anyone had any experience of this?

Thanks in advance natalie x

[Colin Macs Mom]

My ds has been doing this too!!!!!! It's awful, you would think that we had cut his arm off. But he really doesn't appear to be awake at all. To get him to stop we have to get him upright and yell back at him (not mean yelling). Then he opens his eyes and looks very confused, like how did I get here and what's happening? I think it's been related to his reflux - the other day we got a wedge for him to sleep on and he hasn't done that since and has been sleeping better in general. Natalie, does your lo show any signs of reflux at all?

[travis's mum]

Hi jessica thanks for replying, No DS doesn't have reflux, last night was a whole lot better all round he didn't even stir untill 4am. But becauuse I hesitated to feed him (I only let him drink an ounce) he wouldn't go back to sleep untill 5.45. Tonight we're going to try watering down his bottles like suggested in another post. This had workrd prviously, when he originally started sleeping through.

As I said before I'm quite hessitant about waking him as sometimes he finds it difficult to go back to sleep. Another thing I noticed whilst talking to DH is that I often talk in my sleep,at times I have been known to walk.  I know from my own personal experience the best way to handle it is if someone reasures me gently that everything is ok.  My DH says I usually calm down/lie back down and go back to sleep.

I hope DS hasn't inherited this, lets see fingers crossed it was a one off thing for him.

[Colin Macs Mom]

For your sake I do hope it was just an off night then. I also tend to be hesitant to wake DS because he gets very angry when woken, and he stays angry. Unfortunately this means that his naps are not really consistent lengths, but it works out better for everyone this way! But that's another story. Do you find that a gentle reassurance works for your lo? I have often wondered if mine has inherited my sleeping - I've never been a particularly good sleeper, I can count on two hands the number of times I have slept through the night without waking (and without medication!) on one hand.

[joslil]

Are you sure your son doesn't have an ear infection?  My son has been waking up howling, but has been dealing with double ear infections that will not clear up.  - oops, speaking of him...he's awake again...gotta go.