If you have a young child, let me preface this by saying this probably won't happen to you, apparently I was blessed (cursed) with the child who never sleeps....
I need advice because I’m seriously this close to losing it. Last night I got a total of 1.5 hours of sleep. Dawson got about the same. He screamed all night. So let’s start from the beginning.
Dawson has NEVER been a sleep through the night kind of baby. I did get him down to waking basically once a night, but that’s when he was still co sleeping with me. Once he got the hang of that I moved him to his crib, which he was doing FANTASTIC with. This was November. He got a cold. It turned into a 45 day ear infection complete with 4 different antibiotic courses. He’s over that now. I think he’s teething again because of the way he’s chewing and slobbering, like he did when he was 4 months old and cutting teeth. He did okay until about a week ago, and now he is literally acting like a newborn. He is up ALL. NIGHT. LONG. I’m drowning in exhaustion and it’s not an option for me to send him to the sitters and stay home and sleep. I have to work. I don’t know what to do. We tried CIO when D was about 6 or 7 or 8 months old, can’t remember exactly when. And he would cry until he threw up. Hardest 3 days of my life. Swore I’d never do it again. And now I think he’d get so upset that that he would either hurt himself by trying to get out of the crib or make himself throw up. So that’s not an option. I repeat, CIO is NOT an option. I won’t do it.
Really the sleep issue has become much worse since he came off of formula. Dawson was still getting a night time bottle and I decided that we would just cold turkey cut the night time formula bottle out when me made the transition to milk. So he still gets a night time bottle, of water. He probably only drinks about 4 oz throughout the night, so I know he doesn’t really need it. I’m trying to make sure he eats enough throughout the day and a late evening snack to keep him full throughout the night.
I’ve given him Tylenol and motrin for his teeth, it may help for about 2 hours and then he’s back at it. Most of time putting him in the bed with me doesn’t console him, so I’m not sure what the problem is. But I know I’m losing my sanity and I’m ready to kill my husband every time he looks at me. The problems above have seriously made him not want any more children. And that breaks my heart. I don’t look forward to the night time. I stayed awake with D last night and cried as much as he did. I need help.
He wasn’t doing this before the damn ear infection, but his ears are not infected right now. There is still fluid, but that takes a while to drain off. In the mean time I may have committed suicide due to lack of sleep.
In all actuality I know this is a phase and we’ll get through it, but that’s hard to realize at 3 in the morning when I’ve been up since 12 and only have 3 hours til I have to get up to go to work. This blows.
13 comments:
Oh Mandie- I hope you can get a break from this soon. It totally blows. I know CIO isn't an option so I wan't go there. My boys have 2 bottles of milk a day- everything else is water (or prune juice to deal with their constipation) they have 8oz before bed and 8oz when they wake up in the morning. Before we did the CIO our ped told us to cut all bottles (milk or water) in the middle of the night. That was tough at first but once we got away from that it did get better. Wyatt especially would wake up over and over and over to eat (and over and over and over to be changed) once we took it away he got over it quickly. Hugs! It's go to get better, it can't get worse...right?
Oh Mandie. I am so sorry to hear your situation. I have no helpful hints, because I did CIO, and that was the only method that worked for us. Huge (((HUGS))) and many P&PT that you will find a wonderful solution to save you mentally and physically.
I'm only going to tell you what my pediatrician told me at Ben's one year appointment, then I will never mention CIO again. :)
"Chelsea, Ben NEEDS sleep. He needs it more than you do. Obviously nothing else you've done has worked, so that leaves you with what I think is the only option. You MUST let Ben cry it out. I'm the mom who woke up to find her toddler covered in dried vomit, and you know what? She survived it. And she did better because of it, because she started sleeping. It's not healthy for a child to wake so many times in a night. It not only makes their immune systems weaker, but stunts development. He's only going to learn to sleep if you teach him that he CAN sleep through the night. Every time you go in his room, you reinforce that it's okay to wake up during the night. If you want to stop that behavior, you need to do CIO, no matter how difficult."
Obviously I don't remember her exact words, but that's pretty much what she said. And guess what! As horrendous as it was, he SLEEPS NOW!!!! :)
Hang in there! Sleep battles that last longer than a year can seriously drag you down...I know!
Chelsea, how long did it take?
I don't know about Chelsea but for us it took 2 nights of crying and then a few nights of light fussing where they didn't even stand up in their cribs and that was it. Now they lay down and go to sleep or hang out but they don't cry. They also started taking 2 simultaneous naps at 9 and 1...something we never ever had before. We went from them sleeping maybe 1-2 hours at a time with very little naptime to 10+ hours at night and 2-4 hours of naps a day. I didn't think it would ever be this good.
Erin, and that's how you ended up pregnant again. You and Mr. Wonderful actually found time to procreate.
Yikes Mandie, not sleeping is so hard. We had a night like this not too long ago, and it turned out, Adeline was HUNGRY. Not milk hungry, but real food hungry. I ended up cooking her a full meal at like 1 AM. Out of exhaustion and frustration I was in the kitchen actually intending to bust out the Tylenol, and I set her down on the floor, and she booked it to the table and fished a graham cracker out from under her booster chair (yeah yeah I suck at housekeeping) and started eating it as fast as she could. Who would have thought it, you know? But it worked, she ate and went right to bed and slept through till mo
Beth I tried that last night too. I pulled out some pita bread which he LOVES put a piece in his mouth and he spit it right back out...I just need him to talk to me and tell me what's going on, you know.
If you just need to hear a friendly voice, call me. It may be 1am your time, its only 11pm my time. If you want to talk, shoot me an email and I will send you my number.
I'm sorry its so rough. I agree with Chelsea too.
Jacob has been waking up in middle of the night, sometimes he is poopy, sometimes he is hungry (he still gets 8oz at bed time), and sometimes he just wants mommy or daddy. There are other nights that he wants nothing. Those are the nights he still has to CIO.
I'm not telling you to CIO. Just that I understand how hard it is to listen to them doing it.
*hugs* I am always here for you!
It took longer for us than for Erin. We still have bad nights occasionally, but I can handle occasionally. I think it was a full week of CIO before he really started sleeping well. But there were nights where he cried for two full hours. ROUGH! In the end, he wakes up happy and playful, so I know he can't be scarred for life. :) GL!!
I know CIO is just awful, especially when it's gotten to this point, but I do agree with Chelsea's post. I got lucky with one of the few babies that loves to go to bed, but on occasion she will try to cry to see if I'll come back. And a couple times it's taken Joseph physically holding me to keep me from going in there, and I do shed tears when I hear her cry. But after a few minutes (I think the longest was 1/2 hour) she realizes it's not going to accomplish anything and goes to sleep. And she's happy and loves me still in the morning, and usually doesn't try to cry again for months. I know my experience doesn't really compare to yours, but I do know how hard it is to let your baby cry and if you do decide to try that route again, you've got my full support and prayers that it will go as quickly as possible.
Hey sorry your still dealing with this hun!
Okay don't know if I've mentioned this but could he be allergic to dairy or just milk, causing ear infection or just fluid which would be painful? I have this issue and even when I'm not infected I'm really irritable because of the fluid.
Try to Google the wet sock treatment, it will draw the fluid out faster.
Lots of love!!!
Sav
Mandie I am so sorry you are going through this! I HAD the exact same nights, but fortunately for me, I don't work outside the home. BUT it was drastically affecting my older child and our relationship, so I knew I had to do something. I read everything I could and tried it all on Trey. I was COMPLETELY againt CIO because Trey is medically needy (hydrocephalus, asthma, allergies, reflux...) I figured he was awake because something hurt, and I was NOT going to make him cry through pain. But then I was done.
We went to his 12 month check-up and the ped. said how is he sleeping, I told him we get 3 hours a night on average and about 4-5 hours of naps during the day. (I know it is way less than you-I have no idea how you do it!!)
He told me I have to let him cry. Make sure everything is fine, full tummy, clean diaper, tylenol if needed, breathing treatment done (he had a hard time breathing at night), and the crib mattress at a slight angle (to help with ear and reflux.)
I left there thinking let my baby cry-Dumb ass-you have no idea what Trey has been through there is no way I would wish crying on my child after the rough first 6 months of life he had. Plus he was so happy during the day, he didn't need to sleep.
This thought totally changed when I realized my BABY was only getting 7-8 hours of sleep in 24 hours. I knew that was not enough. So I did what I said I NEVER would-CIO. It was horrible I won't lie! 70 min. the first night 75 the second, 60 min. the third-then success! He plays in his crib until he puts himself to sleep now. He sleeps 11-13 hours at night, and 4-6 hours a day in naps. I never thought my sick baby could sleep! I am not saying this to try to talk you into CIO, b/c I respect your parental decisions. I just wanted you to know you are not alone. I feel I caved on my parenting principles, but I also understand I was wrong (only for Trey, if I have another I will not CIO before 12 months and unless ABSOLUTELY necessary.) I also give him a bottle as I lay him down-yeah I know, not supposed to-but seriously you do what you can for your children and you.
I hope you get sleep soon, and what I figured out is when he got RSV at 11 months he was up every 1-3 hours, but when he was better he was still waking up that often he had TRAINED himself to wake that often, so he can TRAIN himself to sleep more.
I hope I don't offend you, like I said I understand you don't believe in CIO, and that's okay to feel that way-you know your son better than anyone ;). If you find anything that works please pass it on, and good luck!! I hope you get some sleep tonight ;)
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