7 month of struggle

[Heike]

(Please excuse any mistakes - English is not my motherlanguage  )
Hello moms and dads! I'm new here in this forum and glad I found this website. It just should have happened much earlier....

My son Luke was born with severe Reflux. The first 2 month we tried everything under the sun to ease the pain, but nothing worked and he needed medication -  LOSEC, which seemed to reduce the constant need to drink and the burning. Unfortunately life did not become easier. We had further problems with Colic and extreme wind, which was obviously very painful. Most of the time - until he was about 5 month - we carried him. Sitting or sleeping on his back only worked for a very short time. In the beginning he never really slept for longer than 30 min, dummy in to sooth him or when crying did not stop, we had to pick him up. Our doctor also mentioned to us, that a Reflux baby will experience more pain when crying - so we always tried to avoid this situation - but most of the time we lost... .
Eventually life improved for him, as he started to sit upright. We had now to face a major sleeping problem, as he had not learned to fall asleep on his own. We used pu/pd method and it seemed to work. Now the night-wakings were still a problem, as he needed his dummy constantly to go back to sleep again. It kept my husband busy till midnight and than it was my turn.
By seven month we decided that this must change and decided to take his dummy away. He only used it for bedtimes. Well, one week of hell is behind us. I can not do it anymore.
After 8 days we bought a new dummy, but without any improvements. As soon as he is close to his naptime he becomes very irritated. When I take him to his room he begins to cry and cry. To lay him down in his cot is almost impossible, as he arches and kicks with his legs, the arms flying around everywhere. We need now almost ONE hour to calm him and I do not know, what went wrong or why he is so out of control. Sometimes I'm so afraid, when he starts screeming and seems to be "out of breath" afterwards. Pu/Pd does not work anymore with 7 month, as things only get worse when I pick him up. He does not like to be touched either, once he started crying. Often I take him out of his bed now and walk around the house or in our garden, until he relaxes. Then back in the bedroom. Often he starts crying again until he his really finished. This can't carry on like this - is anyone in the same situation and can help? I'm on my end...

[Mom to M&M]

Many reflux babies are greatly helped by a pacifier because the sucking stimulates saliva production, which helps neutralize the acid. Is your son still on Losec? Does he sleep on an incline?

What is his routine - how long are his A times?

[Heike]

Thank you for your reply.
Well, yes he is still on Losec, but I think, that the Reflux is not the major issue anymore. Often he rolls on his tummy now or "lays" on his back when he plays and does not "complain". Also, when I offer him tea with his solids, he does not drink very much at all.
We inclined his bed from the first week and he still sleeps on a raised bed.

4.00am wake up and bottle - unfortunately, just like an alarm clock every morning. We tried 2 month ago to change this with pu/pd - without success.
   After the bottle he is most of the time awake for about one hour and will sleep again for about 40 minutes.
7.00 am breakfast - playtime before and after breakfast for about one hour
8.00-8.30 sleep. After 2 hours awake he gets very grumpy and needs his first nap - sleeps for about 40 min.
Therafter bottle.
Playtime for about one hour. After 1,5 hours awake he gets tired and I try not to overstimulate him.
11.00 -11.30 naptime which he skips now more often.
12.00am lunch
1.00-1.30 bottle
If no sleep before lunch he will drop now and often sleeps for 1,5 hours.
After wake up playtime for about one hour and 30 minutes walk
4.30pm supper
5.00-5.30pm bath and thereafter bottle.
By 6.00pm he his most of the time in bed. We tried to keep him longer awake, but if he gets overtired he will even have more difficulties to fall asleep and scream longer. It also does not change his wake up time in the morning.

As I mentioned, the dummy is back, but it made no difference today. At lunchtime it took me over one hour to get him into his bed. He even spits often the dummy out. He will rub his eyes over and over again and his head will go from one side to the other many times. Totally restless..
If I take him out of his bed, he often smiles now and "tries" hard to stay awake. But after 5 - 10 minutes he will arch and cry and rub his eyes. He actually pushes the toys away when he has enough. The signs are clear to me - he is tired. Why does he fight his sleeps so much? We also tried playing in his cot before sleeping - no change. What else can we do?

[Mom to M&M]

Sorry for the delayed response.

It will be hard to get rid of the 4am wake up with PU/PD - wake to sleep often works better for habitual night wakenings, but he may also just need a routine adjustment.

At 7 months, he should be able to handle at least 2.5 hours of A time - closer to 3 hours by end of the day. He may seem tired after only 2 hours awake but that's also because of his early wakenings and just because he's used to sleeping after that amount of time. I'd increase his A time to 2.5 hours in the morning - do it slowly, maybe 15 minutes every 3-5 days and keep it lowkey so he doesn't get too overtired. The longer A time should help him take a longer first nap, If he will take a nap of 1-1.5 hours, his next A time can again be 2.5 hours or a little more - this will help break the cycle of short naps and overtiredness and should eventually help with the 4am wake up call as well.

HTH let me know if you have other questions.

[rosie and joe's mummy]

nothing much to add, but if you look at any of my posts in here you will see I have the same problem. we're not really getting anywhere with it. some days it seems like we are winning and it's all sorting out, some days we are getting worse.

rosie fights sleep too. she has little tricks she does to keep herself awak, like pulling out her hair and pulling her ears. she does it just as the eyes close and then it wakes her up again.

lots of peopl ehave suggested things for me to try and i think really our biggest problem is that she gets too tired and doesn't take long enough naps.  The first one in the day is always better, after 2.5 hours of being awake, but i can't seem to hit on the right amount of atime to get her to sleep easily after that. 2 hours, 2.5 hours, 3 hours, nothing seems right!

she doesn't have easy cues either, she just goes straight to eye rubbing and crying within seconds. no yawning or drowsy faces.

[Jenna's Mum]

Heike, I just read your post and wanted to say I found the same thing as Stacy said... my dd had a way of getting herself to sleep which initially I thought I had to go in and intervene, but I quickly learned that her head rubbing from side to side (she has only just now stopped doing that and the bald patch is growing over) and mantra cry were her way of getting to sleep.  I never tried pu/pd as I was never sure I could follow through with it, and she still has a paci.  I put about 5 in the crib, most by her head but a couple at the bottom end just in case she flips around the crib which she often does.  I also tried staying in the room when she would cry but I found it actually made her worse when she knew I was there, so I would go out for 5 minute increments and then go back in and wipe her face with a wet cloth and tell her it was sleepy time, then promptly leave.  It was very hard but I felt comfortable that she knew she wasn't abandoned and that I was there for her, but was trying to give her just a few mins each time to get to sleep.  This worked and now we rarely have fussy bedtimes or naps, and if we do it's because she's overtired.  Also on the sleepy cue front, my dd goes straight from alert to eye-rubbing too so it's tough, but as soon as I see the eye-rubbing I change her diaper if she needs it, take her upstairs, give her a paci and sit in the rocker for a few mins just whispering or singing softly.  If she gets really fussy in my arms I know she's trying to tell me she needs to get into her crib.  Sometimes she'll cry for a few mins but then she's off.  We were struggling with short naps for a while and sometimes still do, but I found that consistence and persistence paid off when it came to allowing her to learn the skill of self-soothing and getting to sleep.  That was the only way I could let her cry even for 5 mins, was to remind myself I'm allowing her to learn how to get herself to sleep.  Have you read "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child"?  The author advocates a little more crying than BW techniques, so I tweaked it a little for that, but it really helped me understand sleep and found it a helpful resource along with the BW books.

Marisa Mom I was glad to read your post about how long a 7 month old should be able to stay awake... my dd is just over 7 months and we're still doing 3 naps a day because she's such a sleepy girl!  I'm trying to extend her A times and will do it in the 15 min increments as you suggested, thanks.

[rosie and joe's mummy]

i think rosies mantra cry is pretty extreme too.  I think because she never cries other than when she's trying to sleep it affects me more than it maybe would if she did cry normally?

rosie will cry for about 2 minutes but to me as a mum it seems like forever!

sometimes it gets so over the top you think the world has ended, but i have learnt it gets worse if i intervene. I don't believe what I'm doing is letting her cry it out because it's only a couple of minutes, and i'd never let her go for more than 5 ever.

I'm just going to stick with trying to get my A times sorted and letting myself relax and leave her to mantra herself to sleep.

i guess we all just want to be able to lie our babies down and them just drift off quietly. in reality they don't.

[Jenna's Mum]

rosiesmum I just looked at your lilypie ticker and our dd's are exactly the same age! 

You're right, even two mins of crying seems like forever, and my dd only cries at sleep times too but not so much anymore since I did start to let her soothe herself for a few minutes each time and that really helped.  Mostly now she goes down and may squirm around and talk to herself or do a quiet moan, but then she's off to sleep for the most part.  Occasionally we have some crying but not often so I'm sure you'll get there soon.  Hang in there, you're teaching her how to self-soothe and that's a great skill that she will learn soon.

[rosie and joe's mummy]

how sweet! i guess that must have been a great day to have a baby!

[Heike]

Thank you to everyone for your advise. I know now, that I'm not alone with my little problems and I'm grateful for your help. 
I just could not find time to reply earlier - Luke (now almost 8 month) is still a very early bird. He wakes now up between 3 and 4 am. We tried to give him tea, but I could not bear the tears and crying anymore. So, he still gets his early bottle. He will go back to sleep often for another 45 min or 1 hour, but before 6.00 am he is awake again, often just after 5.00am.
I try very hard to increase A-time, but have no luck. After 1,5 hours awake he starts yawning and kicks his toys away. Even reading a book to him is difficult. He does not want to sit on his own by then, so I pick him up, go for walks in the garden or "talk" to the dogs. After 2,5 hours time is up and I lay him down.

But there is also some good news. I bought new dummies again, as things escalated in his cot. It was just not to bear anymore - for both of us. I also went to our paediatrician, as I wondered, if he had an earinfection (he had fluids in his middle ear before) or something else. But luckily he was fine - a big healthy boy. I asked the doctor for advice on the sleep issue. His reply was, that the only proven method to "sort him out" is to let him scream....  He said to me, in case he vomits, I must then take him out, clean him up and then put him back in his cot. I could not find words to reply and left....
In my heart I knew I can do better than that and I also knew, I had to change this situation. Well, what really helped is, that I use now a VERY strict voice. When it's bedtime I cuddle him and kiss him before I lay him down and than I tell him with a deep and strict voice it's time to sleep. It took a few days, but now there is no more screeming, he is just VERY noisy, but this is o.k. for me. He will still take his cot apart and fight his sleep - a blanket I can only put on him, once he is asleep, otherwise the feathers will fly around .... His poor teddy bear has to take all the punches. It's like a miracle to me! The only habit I can not understand is, that he will trow his head from one side to the other x-times like madness. Quite scary.

What is actually a "Mantra" cry and a temperament test?
Thanks again.

[Jenna's Mum]

Heike did I already mention a book I read and really liked on sleep... Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child... I bought it after reading somebody else's post on this website and found it very informative and helpful.  The book also advocates some crying which I coudn't do, but after reading and re-reading some chapters, I understood how important it was to get my dd to have some sleep and sometimes the only way to do that was to leave her alone for a few minutes to figure things out for herself.  I have never been able to leave her crying very hard for more than 5 minutes, but she seemed to get it really fast that sleep time is sleep time and that's that.  I was very consistent with my approach and even if I had to go in every 5 mins for 45 mins or an hour I would.  That didn't happen often though, and the crying times became shorter and shorter until now it is more unusual if she cries and I know there's something else wrong.  Anyway, my point is that the book really helped me to understand a baby's sleep cycles, how getting more sleep actually helps them get more sleep still.  I now put my dd down to bed 30 mins earlier than I used to and she sleeps 60 mins longer in the morning!  Hang in there, and let us know how you're doing.

[Jenna's Mum]

I totally understand CIO was not Tracey's method, I just wanted to pass on the book reference mostly because I found it to be very informative in regards to understanding sleep.  Also I know how frustrating it can be to try different methods for not leaving the baby alone to cry only to find that giving her a chance to fall asleep is all my dd needed.  I certainly am not advocating the CIO method, I am no expert at all, I was just passing on my experience as others have.  I actually bought the book based on another BW reader recommendation, but certainly did not want to offend anyone so I apologize for mentioning.

[rosie and joe's mummy]

with rosie i suppose we are doing a sort of controlled crying then?

when you put her in her cot she cries, and if you stay with her she keeps on crying, but if you leave she cries for a minute or two and then stops. She will then either go to sleep or play quietly for a bit. If the latter she then cries again after say 10 minutes (?).  At this point if I go in straight away she will calm down with stroking her head/back, but will lie awake looking at you, but bursts into tears again if you leave, and you start it all over.  IF I don't go straight in, but give her a moment and let her sort herself out, she mostly settles down and sleeps or starts do do her mantra (which is like a regular eurgh sort of noise, not like a cry at all), if she continues to cry after a few moments, then I do go in and stroke her. she then will fall asleep being stroked.

obviously I prefer not to have to go in and stroke her, so she is settling herself down to sleep, but we're only just beginning to get this daytime problem sorted out. So far though it's been like this for about a week and it's getting there.

[rosie and joe's mummy]

definitely mantra crying then.

sometimes it does escalate, and then i go straight in, but more often than not it's regular and slows down.

it does get worse if you go in too soon and disturb her, which is something i've had to learn.