Hello -
Does anyone have any advice about dealingwith my son's night wakings? and/or trying to work with the nursery on J's routine. Its all going a bit pear-shaped!
My wee boy is 9 months old. HIs night-waking are worse on the two days a week he is at nursery - on these days he often only has an hours sleep during the day and he gets lots & lots of stimulation at nursery. He will often wake up a couple of times before midnight and then again at about 4am. Each time, he screams a lot, and thrashes his legs up and down and rolls from side to side. It seems that tHe best way to calm him down is to contain him physically by either holding him on his side with a hand each on his hips and shoulders or to hold his hands by his side when he is lying on his back with a forearm across his legs. He will calm down like this eventually but it ends up that we can't leave the room - the minute we lift our hands off him, he will start screaming and thrashing again. Its a ransom situation! If we wait until we think hes asleep, he often jolts himself awake again and it all starts again (even if we wait until we think hes definately asleep!). We have also tried picking him up to calm him but it just turns into the same thing when we put him back down. PUPD doesnt really seem an option as he can't seem to self-soothe at all when he is in this state. IT usually takes 1 - 1 1/2 hours to get him back to sleep.
Obviously all this is horrible and not good for any of us! We have been trying to adjust J's routine and make sure that he is getting enough sleep during the day (he seems to need a minimum of 2 hours sleep during the day to sleep through at night) - this works now on on non-nursery days when we have got him back to sleeping through the night. It is very difficult on the nursery days and their ability to get him to sleep and keep putting him down seems limited. We need advice on this & also if there is anything we could be doing differently when he wakes up in the night (esp. if we just can't get the nursery on board)?
HIs routine is as follows:
7:00 wake up & breastfeed (each side 5 minutes - although my milk supply seems to be reducing & J seems v. dissatisfied with it - feel that I don't always have much milk at times e.g. when I haven't had enough to drink, or have my period - it just seems to be reducing. Am thinking that I will soon replace this with a bottle feed)
7:30 washed & dressed (& leave for nursery on nursery days at 7:50)
8:00 ish breakfast (cereal, fruit & 5 fl oz formula)
10-10:30 nap - 30-40 mins at nursery/1 hour min at home (though if he hasn't slept through the night we put him down at 9 - 9:30)
12:00 lunch
12:30 nappy change & play
14:30 nap (1 hour minimum) (though if he only had a short sleep in the am, we put him down at 13:30)
16:00 7 fl oz bottle of formula
16:30 nappy change & play
17:45 pick up from nursery on nursery days
18:00 dinner
18:30 bath, get ready for bed, 7 fl oz bottle of formula milk, clean teeth, wee story, bed.
In general, there is a lot going on for J - this is only his 5th week at nursery, and I've only been back at work 5 weeks. He has also started crawling like crazy the last 3 weeks and in the last week he has started pulling himself up on everything. Nursery is noisy, with lots of different toys than at home - and ofcourse lots of other children. At home, we have quiet play about 30 minutes before J is due a sleep (e.g. with only one quiet toy when J plays on his own, or a story). THe nursery seemed very vague if they did this/could do this.
He always goes to sleep with "sleep-dog" - his little blue cuddly dog! - this is at home and at nursery.
Thanks for your time and help!
A very tired mum!
