Refusing to sleep: Day 7

[cristeen]

Help? Anyone? Please? I'm going to start ripping my hair out!

He'll GO to sleep, but the moment I move him off the breast he wakes up screaming and won't go back to sleep. And even then, he's not going to sleep as often as he should be. It's to the point where I'm back to swaddling him at night to get him to sleep, but I hate doing it because he likes to sleep on his tummy, so as soon as he's sound asleep I have to free his arms.

The only sure way to get him to sleep is the car, and then I'm stuck in the car. ANd half the time, he'll wake up as soon as the car stops moving anyway.

The stroller doesn't work anymore - as soon as we go out he's looking at everything, same with the Moby. And swaddling during the day doesn't seem to be working either.

Help?!?

[Kelly1101]

How old is he?

Could be teething. Could be that he's about to have a "breakthrough" with a developmental milestone (about to crawl, about to roll, about to sit independently, about to walk).

[cristeen]

5 mos. I've been thinking teeth for a while, but I can't feel any buds. But he's drooling all over everything.

[Kelly1101]

Oh, five months is just a total PITA time anyway. I remember having emotional break-downs because my baby was so fussy and wouldn't sleep. And it ended up in teething-- she just took a LONG time with those first teeth.

With the drool, that's a definite possiblity.

But also that's a prime age for "milestones", sitting, rolling, getting on hands and knees, crawling, making more varied sounds-- all of that going on can kind of overload them, I think.

But yeah, five months old is tough, and I'm sorry you're going through it But it really IS a phase, and it WILL get better.


One thing that I found, the less my baby slept the less she wanted to sleep, because of being over-tired. I took a day or two and pretty much camped out in the rocker in front of the computer with a big glass of water, some snacks, and the Boppy. And would rock her and nurse her and hold her while she slept for a few hours at a stretch. If she woke up, put her back on the boob, nurse her back down. Over and over again, until she was truly not tired anymore. It's hard, but once she got a few days of getting real, sustantial sleep, it helped even her out some to where she would nap better on her own.


Hang in there...

[tzs]

maybe some tylenol before bed one night for the potential pain and if he's overtired it might make him drowsy enough to get him into some quality sleep?
then maybe hylands teething tabs to follow up nightly...tylenol on bad nights???

i know "unnecessary meds" aren't preferable but #1 he's very likely in pain from teething and #2 if some tylenol eases pain plus makes him drowsy then i don;t call it "unnecessary" because sleep is so important. for both of you!

depends on how you feel about things like that, i guess.