Please help us - sleep related - it is 4:00 am and I am here with my DS...(long)

My DS was always a terrible sleeper - a little over 1.5 mos ago (when he was 9.5 mos) we had to resort to CIO/Dr. Ferber. After a few horrible nights it worked wonderfully. He still woke up in the middle of the night but almost always put himself back to sleep rather quickly.

Two weeks ago he got sick and for the week that he was sick we comforted him without regard to sleeping issues knowing we would have to go back to CIO/Ferber when he was well to get him back on schedule.

Anyway, for the most part he fell into his old routine with falling asleep and naps. However, the middle of the night has been a disaster ever since. He is consistently waking up at 2 or 3 am (he goes to bed at 10pm) and will not go back to sleep. He has a good day every few days where he either does not wake up or puts himself back to sleep quickly but, I think this is from sheer exhaustion. The other nights he is always crying for over an hour. Sometimes two. Sunday night he was hysterical for two hours b/f falling asleep and I decided that night that one hour would be my limit - since I don't think even Dr. Ferber contemplated that long of crying! So tonight - he woke up 2:20 - 3:20 I finally picked him up.

I can't tell if it is an issue of him not being able to/wanting to put himself back to sleep or if something is really bothering him - it seems like it is something really bothering him b/c he settles down sometimes only to awake a few minutes later hysterical again.

I don't know what to do b/c nothing seems to be working. He is exhausted and not himself and I am exhausted and not myself. Please help us What could be wrong with my boy? I thought maybe he was getting sick again but, except for being extremely fatigued - he is acting totally normal during the day and has no temp. It could be teething but - I don't think that is 100% to blame

Message edited 7/30/2008 4:09:46 AM.

Re: Please help us - sleep related - it is 4:00 am and I am here with my DS...(long)

In some respects my DS is a great sleeper..He goes right to sleep when you put him in for a nap or for bed. His naps are at least an hour long if not more....Sleeping at night is an entirely different issue.

DS almost never wakes up happy. Whether it be from a nap or from the night. He cries and complains upon waking. He's almost like not really awake but doing so in his sleep. We have gotten to the point where we just ignore it....Easily done for naps but not so much when it's during the night time.

Just this morning I think he cried and complained for more than an hour in his crib around 5am for about an hour and a half....For us this is progress b/c it used to be 2x per night.

One thing that I found was that as he got older (he'll be a year old the middle of August) was that he was sleeping too much during the day. Understandable b/c he wasnt sleeping enough at night. So I started keeping him awake more during the day and limiting the naps. It's only been a week but so far for us it's working out pretty well. I have started making him be in his crib, at night, for a minimum of 10 hours....Little by little his awake periods are less and less and are for shorter and shorter durations....

Perhaps your DS is napping too much during the day which is causing him to wake up more during the night. Him being sick might have not had as much to do with him waking now as that he is starting to get ready to give up a nap????

Re: Please help us - sleep related - it is 4:00 am and I am here with my DS...(long)

Have you tried putting him to bed earlier? If any of my children is up too late, then the entire night is a disaster.

Re: Please help us - sleep related - it is 4:00 am and I am here with my DS...(long)

Re: Please help us - sleep related - it is 4:00 am and I am here with my DS...(long)

Posted by MrsGmomof3

Have you tried putting him to bed earlier? If any of my children is up too late, then the entire night is a disaster.

Re: Please help us - sleep related - it is 4:00 am and I am here with my DS...(long)

So last night he ended up being awake from 2:20 - 5:40 I tried to put him back to sleep around 4 and he cried again for almost an hour. I picked him up and finally he went down when I put him down forty min. later and slept for the rest of the night. I'm hoping to get a full night sleep tonight I just wish he could talk and tell me what is bothering him!