I am up again in the early morning..the very early morning. Little Josiah continues to struggle with sleeping peacefully through the night, as he has rather frequently since the month of March. He will definitely win the prize among our children for “highest maintenance sleeper” in the early months of life. (Not counting the newborn months, the first six of which he slept like a little angel.)
We know that all of his ear infections (which started in March) months six through about twelve certainly contributed to wakefulness at night, as well as to an overall general destruction of the good sleep patterns he’d established up to that point. But those troubles have thus far been curbed with his ear tubes, and we are so thankful.
These latest issues at night appears to be nightmares or terrors of some sort – he wakes, and cannot be easily comforted by Mommy or Daddy, but cries and cries as if in distress, and acts scared until his attention can be otherwise focused. Allowing him to “cry it out” does not seem to work, as he can go on for hours, intermittently crying, trying to settle himself, only to burst out with wails again in another few minutes. Only time and patience appears to help…and just being in Mommy’s arms isn’t enough to necessarily calm him in the midst of one of these episodes. After managing to help him calm down tonight/this morning (?) I finally put him back to bed about 15 minutes ago, and he is back to a good cry again…but sadly, as with most of these incidents, it’s been over two hours since the crying began, with no obvious end in sight, and that’s a long time to be awake and upset.
So, here we are, trying our best to figure out how to help our little fourteen month old guy, first for his sake – he certainly needs more sleep than he is getting, and it is hard to watch him start to settle down only to “freak out” again and work himself back up to a state of high distress – and for the sake of his Mommy, who, given all the night-wakings, is once again feeling like she has a newborn…to say nothing of developing those attractive little circles under her eyes again just in time for Christmas!
If any of our dear readers has had a baby who struggled with something like this – where it was more than just waking every night to eat, or because they just hadn’t learned to sleep through the night – and if you found a helpful solution for your family, please feel free to chime in with any advice!
Good night, and sleep tight (I hope!)!
I’m not sure I can help, except in knowing you’re not alone! I’m up with a six month old doing the same thing. Possible ear infection or teething–who knows, but I’m a zombie now after having her sleep through the night for months now.
Hi Hornes – I suffered from many night terrors well into my teens, which is not normal. In fact my last one was in my mid twenties, which again is well past when most people stop having them. I have had none sense that last one.
My parents focused on comforting me, turning on the lights, and just letting me know everything was all right and they were there to take care of me. They would also work on getting me to go back to sleep which was usually the best way to get “out” of the night terror.
They are a really freaky thing… there are some good resources here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_terrors