Still Disrupted 3 weeks after cold?

[Harrisonsmummy]

harrison had a cold 3 weeks ago. While he was under the weather, I gave him meds at night and he didn't wake. Since he is over the cold his sleep has been disrupted. Whereas he was sleeping for naps roughly 1hr 50mins per day, he is now down to generally 1hr 30mins, and he has been waking earlier.(today 5am). I am trying to keep his routine the same, nap 12.30pm, bed 7.15pm. Some nights however with wake-up or early am he is down to 9.5 hours. (usual 10.5 hours)

I have noticed with his naps he is crying out after 55mins and has just begun to resettle himself again, and last night he cried out at 3.40am. I heard him and resettled him before he woke completely, but he woke 1hr 20mins later and that was it.

I have put him to bed early, and that seems to be just resulting in early wake-ups.

He has had grandparents staying for a few days at a time for the last 4 weeks. They have now gone.

No obvious sings of teething ( at 20 months we are waiting for 2 year molars), and no sings of an ear infection (sometimes rubs his ear in his sleep). He is quite clingy at the moment however.

He is settling at night ( as long as no disturbance ie voices downstairs) ok.

Does this still sound like ongoing "knock-on" from the cold / grandparents coming and going?

I guess I am looking for reassurance again, before I get stressed!!

Justine

[Florencia]

Yep Justine, it totally makes sense that he's "resseting" right now. It was a lot going on and ped/mom (who is also a doctor) have told me that after the bug is cleared, their little bodies take a long walk to recovery, and sometimes ache (just as they ache when they have a high fever). Maybe you could try some paracetamol or another mild pain killer if your ped ok's it for another week while he gets on the mend?. Sleep cycles might also get disturbed for that reason.

Other than that, i think it was a great approach to try to keep and mantain your same timings (That is for naps and bedtime). If early bedtime is backfiring, go back to your usual timings and if he wakes super early, try a catnap in the stroller/car for 10-20 mins so he can hold on till 1230. Same with bedtime if the nap is short, try a catnap around 330-400.

I too agree that is too early for 2nd year molars. It doesn't appear to be a developmental / temperamental thing so i'd just keep up with the good work... and come here for a vent if it takes you long. We'll be here for you!

[imsmum]

Hi Justine--Sorry that Harrison seems to be having some continued difficulties getting back into his routine after his cold.  I know you were doing two naps when he was waking in the night and since the early wakings seem to come next in the sequence of our lo's sleep problems I guess this is part of the process!  I would try moving the one nap earlier, even 15 minutes or so temporarily since Harrison seemed to lengthen his nap with that shortened interval between wakeup up and nap time when there was the switch to daylight savings.  Then maybe you can move both the nap and bedtime back, so you can ease him back into his normal routine.

Margot is still having a few sleep disturbances but has mostly gone back to her normal routine after her cold, but I agree with Florencia, the combination of the cold and sleep distrubances from the cold seems to take our lo's a while to get over.  So don't get too stressed, he'll get himself sorted out!

[nadiasilvina]

Please! Nobody can understand you like i do!!!!!!!!!!!! 
Dana has excatly the same...she has a very strong flu for about a month and now, that she is fine, she has a little caugh that is still disturbing her at night. As always, she gets up at 2 or 3 in the morning and cries a lot, hopping us to go to her as we used to do when she was ill...so...yes...illness is one of the worst things to get them used to some propers we use to confort them when they are ill.
But, let me say, that i strongly believe at this point that a baby who is a good sleeper doesnīt have this kind of problems...i mean...we must assume that our babies are not good sleepers...because i canīt use another method now to get her sleep trough the night i canīt get her to.
So, last night for example, she went to bed at 8.30 (as always) she fell asleep in 15 minutes, but at 3 she woke up and cried like a trantum....for an hour..my dh and i need to sleep, so, when we realised that an hour has been passed we gave her a bottle and she sleep to 8 am.
We do so much as we can. We are so so tired after the illness so we need to sleep. I canīt understand when and why she became so traumatic to sleep trough the night.
Sorry for being so negative...but...i have no idea to get me up. 
Kisses, Nadia.

[Harrisonsmummy]

Thanks for all the replies. I think consistency is the key probably. I stopped the two naps after a day or so, and am now back onto usual routine. I just find it is treading a tightrope to prevent the overtiredness. Bed at 7pm means a 5.30 wake-up (if we are lucky) then too tired at naptime! The night time wakings are now down to only 20-30 minutes and none last night- which is usually a good sign, so hopefully we are through the worst, however it just takes a couple of nights of 9 3/4 hr sleep and we are back to square one.

I think these "short" sleepers don't have enough leeway, so are more easily prone to the overtiredness.

Nadia, hang in there. Try some pain relief before bed and try and get her down a bit earlier - you may just find that that helps her sleep through a bit better!

Thanks for the support.

Justine

[Jess-J&E]

Just following this thread since we are coming out of the same thing.  It has taken us a good three weeks (12 days of illness) to get back on track.  We aren't completely there but we are getting really close agian.

I just wanted to comment on what Justine said

I think these "short" sleepers don't have enough leeway, so are more easily prone to the overtiredness.

How true that is!!! I never thought about it that way.  These kids who are usually 10 hour a nighters, don't have much room to move and they are overtired.  I think that is exactly what happens.  Really insightful Justine!  Thanks for the new perspective.
Jess

[imsmum]

Justine--Should've known I would jinx myself!  After a 1.5 hour nap yesterday Margot was up last night from 1:30 to 4:30 and then woke her up at 8.  I wonder what will happen with her nap today??

I hope Harrison's night was better.  I am starting to wonder if our little ones who used to be sensitive to that interval between nap and night sleep are now not going the other way and need to have a shorter period between wakeup and nap to get that nice long nap in.  Last Friday I didn't get Margot down until 10 pm because of a family party and I thought we were in for it that night for sure because she had only napped 1.5 hours and woke at 2:30ish.  She slept through until 7:45 am! She went down for a nap the next afternoon at 1:15 and although she stirred briefly at the 1.5 hour mark I eventually had to wake her up at 3:45!  I find with Margot that the 1.5 hour nap really throws her off, regardless of how early her bedtime is. It used to be that as long as I could get her asleep 5.5 hours after nap wakeup she would sleep her 10 hours straight at night, but not anymore.  Also starting to wonder if it isn't teeth since her cheeks were red yesterday.  I'm going to try some 8 hour Motrin tonight (since she seems to be waking at the 6 hour mark).

Don't know if any of that may help with Harrison but let us know if you find any strategies that work for you.  Good luck!




 

[Harrisonsmummy]

Awake for 3 hours - nightmare! harrison has slept through the last couple of nights - I have made sure he was in bed at 7pm and stayed until he was fast asleep at about 7.15pm. He slept until 5.30ish - so at least has got a reasonable quota in. I think I had just let the bedtime drift a bit too far to get him back on track.

He also seems to be very clingy at the moment - that may play something of a part. I will work on getting back out of his room, once everything else is clear!! Although I have a cold/cough - so am fine tuned in to any signs of sniffles in Harri! Paranoid or what!

I can't figure out the naps at all. He slept for 2 hours today, but cried out for several minutes after an hour (until he found his Thumb!) Having woke at 5.30am, his nap was at 12.35pm, but yetserday was the same timing and he slept for 1hr 40 minutes. I haven't a clue.....but like you the 1.5hr naps certainly weren't enough. Just an extra 10/15 minutes makes all the difference.

Hope Margot has a better night, hopefully the meds will help.

Justine

[imsmum]

Glad Harrison gave you a few better nights, but you're right--strange how the naps don't seem to have any consistency right now.  At this point I don't really care how long she naps, as long as it's enough for her so that she is able to sleep well at night.

Hope you are feeling better, and importantly, that Harrison doesn't get the sniffles too!

[Harrisonsmummy]

It just gets stranger......harrison slept for 2.5hours yesterday afternoon. I woke him at 3pm. I was curious as to how it would affect him overnight.

He went to sleep fine by 8pm. Woke up 4.50am. So only 9 hours sleep.

I am assuming that the long nap has knocked out night time sleep (or he is coming down with something!) But I am remembering something that Henrysmama (I think) mentioned, that adding up Henry's sleep, she does nap + night time, rather than nightitme +nap.

When I do this across the board, we get 12 hours virtually every day!

How does anyone else add up sleep times?

[tullyma]

Hi Justine. Just wondering how things are going with Harrison now??? Is he still having early mornings? We're going through the same thing here at the moment. Don't you hate those 4.30am starts  ? My 20 mth old DD refused to nap AT ALL yesterday and then went to bed at 7.30pm. How on earth does that work??

[Harrisonsmummy]

Oh we are having great fun here! We are on to cold/virus number 2! I am finding mainly that if I can get him into bed by 6.50pm and asleep by 7.10pm with some meds, he is sleeping until 5.25am. Which helps a bit. Any later and he is just too overtired and we are back to the 5am wake-ups!

Then when he is extra tired the naps start to literally break up - so after 55mins he starts to cry and I have to rock him back to sleep...at least now I know more what triggers it all - so don't panic too much, and the earlies are better than night wakings! The trouble I find is that I wake up at 4.30am, and tense waiting for him to wake-up. Then he doesn't wake until 5.30am, and I am just about to drift back to sleep....

The joy of parenting......

[tullyma]

Tell me about it. It's like they have a sensor that sets them off crying just when mum is drifting back to sleep...

So what do you guys do when you actually get up (before it's even light)? I've been sitting on the couch with DD watching Nick Jr on very low volume. I know I know!!  that's probably not the best way to encourage sleeping in, but at 5am the last thing on my mind is reading books or playing with toys. I'm sooooo tired and my eyes are so puffy that I can hardly see let alone talk or play. I don't let her eat any breakfast until 6am just in case I'm inadvertently re-setting her body clock and then hunger might wake her early.

Thankfully it's DH's turn to get up with her tomorrow. The only problem is, she calls out "Mama" every 10 mins until I get up anyway so it isn't really a "sleep in" at all. 

[Harrisonsmummy]

I always treat it like a night time wake-up to a point. So I go in, say it's still night time and lay him down. Sometimes I give him a slug of water.

Then to begin with I would sit on a chair / lie on the floor in his room until an acceptable time, this used to be 6am, when he woke at 5.30am, now it's 5.30ish if he wakes at 5.00am. Normally he would just lay there quietly, sometimes jump up and down, then I would just put him back down and go and sit back down. I don't think he has ever gone back to sleep at this point!

Recently I have managed to lay him down and walk out. He will stay quiet for another half an hour or so.

Personally this tends to be an issue with him, post illness. Once he is sorted out he will wake and generally be contented on his own for a while. He wakes and cries out I think when he is overtired - hence the early bedtimes!