Minutes later he's crying at the top of his lungs. We give him a few minutes but he doesn't calm down. One of us goes up to pat him, give him back his paci, try to get him to fall asleep. Sometimes we leave the room with him asleep. Ten minutes later, he's awake and crying again. Rinse and repeat.
"Your turn!" has become an all-too-familiar refrain in our house.
One evening, I picked him up during probably his fifth crying fit and he just collapsed against me and was asleep in an instant (which I admit I totally loved). I held him for a few minutes then put him down. Not a minute later, crying.
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| How could I NOT pick him up when he looks this upset? That lower lip quiver gets me every time. |
It all usually stops at 10:30pm, give or take a few minutes.
Blue wants to just cave (I don't blame him) and not even put them to bed until then, except that then they'd just be napping downstairs because they ARE tired, and Periwinkle usually goes to bed fine unless her naps were horrendous (or like yesterday when she took a four-hour nap at daycare--way too long). I don't want to mess up the progress we've made with her or give up on the healthier early bedtime.
I've heard suggestions ranging from "He's teething, so wait it out" to "Try an earlier bedtime, he might be too overtired by 8pm to go to sleep easily." He does have his hands in his mouth all the time these days, but teething rings don't really seem to help him. Plus he naps fine. Although, he has been more cranky since about the same time last week, so this could be the reasoning behind it. He's had crying fits during the day when he usually pretty much NEVER cries. And maybe at night he knows he won't be getting comforted all night so he cries. Maybe he just misses us during the week because he spends most of his time at daycare so he wants to be held by us (rip my heart out, kiddo).
It was working. We had a good thing going. What the hell happened in the past week?
The good news is that once finally asleep (which often involves him sleeping for 20 minutes, giving one last cry, then falling back to sleep for good) he sleeps all night. We haven't had a real nightwaking or feeding since Saturday, March 23. So that's been awesome.
Suggestions welcome.
Do NOT go back to putting him to bed at 10:30! That is way, way too late for a baby to be going to bed. I would wait it out for a week to see if maybe its teething, then try an earlier bedtime if possible. Overtiredness is a biotch to deal with in babies.Have you tried tylenol to see if that helps?
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, we won't switch to 10:30 bedtime. And just for the record, they usually napped in the bouncer and swing from 8-10, they just weren't up in their crib.
ReplyDeleteI ended up putting them to bed at 7:30, just a half hour earlier than normal, and that seemed to do the trick. He was a little ornery but fell asleep within ten minutes and hasn't woken up since! Woohoo! Thanks for your input!