My son has started waking up during the night over the past few nights. Last night we were up from 2:30 - 4:30am and a couple nights ago it was from 1 - 3am. He cries and SCREAMS and I'm talking stiff legs head thrown back, the whole bit. I will go in there, sometimes he will immediately lay back down and then when he seems to be calm I will go to leave and he pops back up crying. Sometimes he will stomp around in the crib, hysterical, and then when I go to pick him up he arches his back and hates that too.
I'm not sure what to do..... we're living in an apartment until July. I talked to our upstairs neighbors yesterday evening and they can hear him when he starts up. :o( So ordinarily I wouldn't be opposed to letting him cry a little bit but I don't want them to be up too!
I called the pediatrician and they basically said they don't know. They suggested night terrors but I looked that up online and I'm not sure that's necessarily it. He is napping fine during the day, eating dinner and I give him a sippy of milk before he goes to bed, so I don't think he's hungry. His room seemed cold last night so I put an extra blanket on him but the dr. said that if it was just that he was cold, he would probably want me to hold him and he would be comforted in my arms.
This has been going on for about the past week or a little less. Saturday night he spent the night at my in-laws and slept thru, 12 hours.
I'm at a loss here... but by 2:30am I was up for the 2nd time with Ryan and I had already been up twice taking the dog out. Then I didn't get back to bed until 4:30 and he woke up at 7. UGHHHH something's gotta give! And quick!
Thanks for your help....
t
Thank you all so much for your help. A friend of mine gave me some Hylands teething tablets and they have helped for the past few nights.... I guess he is able to sleep now and stay asleep. I had not used them before.... Motrin always seemed to work for him in the past. Anyway it's nice to sleep through the night again. :o)
have you washed the blankets, maybe there's an insect that is biting him....
do you leave some light on in the room?
change his mattress,,,,
he should have all his teeth by now right?? Sorry it's been a while for me I forgot at what age all their teeth come out..
change the room around,,,is it decorate w/things he likes? something in the room he's not liking and frightens him at night, how long has he been sleeping in this room alone?
We went thru this with our daughter at the same age (about 2 months ago). We decided to move dinner up to 5:30 and slow down the bed time routine a bit. After baths, instead of coming back out to the den to play a little before bedtime and watch a video (which I decided is too stimulating before bed time)...my husband and I, our 4 year old daughter and 20 month old all sit on the floor in my younger daughter's room and read books and talk etc. Then my husband and older daughter say good night to us and I stay and quietly read books to my 20 month old. I warn her when it's the "last book" then I pick her up, put her music box on in her crib, sing to her for about 2 min. then put her down. For some reason when we took a little more time winding down the nightmares just stopped. Hope this helps!
I have dealt with this before with my kids. My oldest had constant problems at night and it was a long time before I realized they were night terrors. She had trouble anytime the day was out of routine (like going to the zoo or something away from home where her nap could have been thrown off, etc.). I'm sure there were times she woke up like this and nothing was really out of the ordinary, but they were definitely more common when the day was shook up a bit.
My children also dealt with very severe leg cramps. I don't know if they were growing pains or what, but massaging them didn't help. I gave them Tylenol or Motrin and they went back to sleep as soon as it kicked in. Of course, they usually told me their leg hurt. The crying was also different than that of night terrors too. One was in pain and one sounded like they were hysterical. They often had their eyes open during the night terror which is probably what took me so long to figure out what was going on with my daughter. I thought she was awake. If I remember correctly, the night terrors started when she was about 13 months old. Oh, and she took naps absolutely fine. This only took place at night.
Has your pedia checked his ears? The first thing that comes to mind is an ear infection. (And I'm sure you know, they don't have to run a fever to have an ear infection.)
Regards,
K.
We've been going through a similar situation with our daughter who is 19 months. She's been sick off and on since the holidays and we got into a habit of rocking her back to sleep when she wakes up (sometimes 5 or more times a night). She's healthy now, but was still waking. We came to the conclusion that she didn't know how to get herself back to sleep when she would wake up. We first worked on getting her to fall asleep on her own when we put her down to bed, while we were in the room (we still haven't gotten to a point where we can put her down while she's awake and leave the room) but we don't pick her up once she's in the crib. Anyway, she can do that, so now when she wakes in the night, one of us goes in to make sure she's okay and put her blanket back on her and we leave the room. The first time we did this she cried hysterically for about 8 minutes. Seemed like an eternity, but since then, she's waking less and she's going right back to sleep once we leave. I didn't expect it to be this easy, and I'm not suggesting your experience will be, but as you said, there's not a lot of options and your sweet boy needs to learn to put himself back to sleep.
Good luck...
My son does this when he's teething. He just cut his molars, and we dealt with a couple of weeks of this... and now he's cutting the sharp teeth ... whatever they're called... and we're back doing the same thing again. If he's having a fussy evening, I'll give him some Tylenol or Motrin before bed and he'll sleep through the night! If he wakes up in the middle of the night... I fight him to put oragel on his gums... which allows him to calm down enough for me to give him some pain medicine.
I know it seems like we give him a lot of medicine... but we only do it on nights he really seems to need it... and you gotta do what you gotta do to get some sleep sometimes!!
Maybe gas?? Growing pains?? Have you tired to give him some tylenol or motrin?? I hope something works so you can get some sleep!! Good Luck!!!
Hi T.-
Could it possibly be the milk? He may have gas from the milk and be uncomforable. When my daughter had gas she would scream and arch her back. Maybe try giving him formula instead of milk and see if that works since formual is gentler on the tummy than milk. And for gas problems I use Baby Bliss Gripe Water. It works wonders! Go online to find where you can buy it in your area--usually specialty drugstores or specialy grocery store such as Whole Foods, Central Market, etc. Also, there is a fabulous book--The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. I personally do not have a problem with a baby crying it out a little but this book gives some recommendations. I certainly understand your situation with not wanting to wake the neighbors. I hope that you find a solution soon so you can get some sleep. :)
