If this doesn't stop, i'm getting a crib!!

[cristeen]

He's 8 mos and in the last few days sleep has deteriorated evn further. The other night he was up 4 times between 9 and 1. I'm getting such little/poor sleep now that i'm almost as much of a zombie as i was when he was nb.

He's thrashing in his sleep, only happy when he's right up against me, but that prevents me from sleeping or from getting him a bottle. He's also flailing a lot in his sleep, reaching behind him to smack me in the face repeatedly, and crawling in his sleep. Last night when he started that i just found myself so angry i wsnted to scream. And to top it all off his naps have gone from 2+ hrs to 20-40 minutes. And we've gone from him going to sleep fairly easily while eating to needing to be rocked down and even swaddled some nights.

Anyone have a brilliant suggestion? Mommy needs some sleep here.

[cristeen]

Really? 45 views and not one suggestion?

[jumpmama]

Have you ruled out teething or any discomfort? is he too hot?

maybe try a crib up against your bed so he has his own little area?

[penstamon]

Oh I so wish I had a brilliant suggestion but all I have is sympathy and commiseration. I just posted about our situation deteriorating further and I think its just depressing for all the mamas who so want to hear that there is a miracle suggestion that they missed.

Someday we will sleep, right?

[alegna]

That sounds really rough. A few ideas in no particular order:

too hot/too cold?
food intolerances
teething
earlier bedtime?
later bedtime?
white noise
change sleeping position- tummy/back/side
put a pillow or rolled towel on the outside next to him so he's blocked in

good luck!

-Angela

[Adallae]

My first thought was teething, or he's hot. DD thrashes a lot when she's warm (and she runs a lot warmer than me, so it took awhile before I figured that one out).

Do you have a partner who can sleep with him alone for a few hours, so you can get a solid block of sleep?

I hope this phase passes soon for you.

[cristeen]

Thank you ladies. At least I know I'm not alone.

For the questions... I don't know whether he's teething or not. He acts like he is, but the ped checked his mouth 2 days ago and said no. Regardless, he's been getting a dose of Motrin every night before bed because he wouldn't go to sleep, shoving his hands in his mouth and wailing. Every night except tonight, that is, when he went down all on his own 2 hours before bedtime.

We were having a bit of a heat wave, so it was hot for a while, but now it's back to our normal chilly nights. Chilly enough that mommy needs a blanket. And he just sleeps in a dipe most of the time. I've been covering him with his fleece blanket, which seems to be enough for him (he runs hot). When it was hot, we were running a fan in the bedroom and he tolerates the white noise well, so I just keep it going, even if it is a bit too cold right now for it, really.

Bedtime - it's 8 now, although he went down at 6 today of his own volition. He wakes up like clockwork every morning between 6 and 6:30 (I'd much rather sleep until 8, and DH doesn't even get up for work until 7). I'm totally open to getting him to bed earlier. We'll see what time he gets up in the morning. The only real issue with that is that DH doesn't even get home until between 6 and 7, so if I put him down at 7, that means he sees daddy for maybe 30 minutes.

Positioning - he's in charge of that. He's mostly a tummy sleeper, but some nights he sleeps on knees and chest in that weird butt-in-the-air position. He's crawling, so he can get into whatever position he wants - which includes pulling himself up (to a stand) on the windowsill while still technically asleep. If he falls asleep on the bottle, he'll flip himself over as soon as I take it away. If I have to swaddle or rock him down then I put him down on his side, but once he breaks the swaddle he'll usually roll onto his tummy. He only really sleeps on his back if he falls asleep that way and is just *out*.

The pillow - this is what I do before I go to bed, because otherwise I come in to find him smack in the middle (or worse - hanging off the edge). But it just doesn't seem practical during the night. He's against the wall, and I'm on the outside - DH sleeps in another room.

As for food intolerances, it is possible, although I haven't seen any regular signs of any until today (red butt today and red butt after introing bell pepper a couple weeks ago). But it is odd since I didn't introduce anything today. I'll go back to basics tomorrow and see if it clears up.

And I think tomorrow DH will be sleeping with the babe. He won't/can't do it during the week, since he has trouble getting back to sleep after each waking, but he's willing on the weekends. I just haven't pushed for it.

I'm going to try to keep track of how many times he wakes tonight... I've been so exhausted lately that I can't remember in the morning.

[BlueWolf]

I wish I had some advice for you. We went through this at 8-9 months too... it got better. Now we're going through it again at 11 months.

[Adallae]

When DD's first two teeth began to come in, our doctor didn't see anything either. I had to show her where you could just barely see the top of the teeth at the gum line.

I've found recently that a dose of Motrin, followed an hour later by a few teething tablets, followed by the Hylands teething gel just before nursing to sleep, helps DD most at night. Might sound like overkill, but just one on it's own wasn't nearly enough. She's cutting 4 teeth at the same time. We've also started taking short walks just before bed, and that helps to calm her down too.

Enjoy your sleep this weekend!

[kismetbaby]

Sorry cristeen! I've been getting decent sleep (3-4 night wakings), but then last night he decided he had to be attached to my nipple ALL NIGHT LONG. OMG, I am so tired today. So I feel your pain. I can sleep through some amount of night nursings, but I need to change positions sometimes! Ugh. I'm chalking up to developmental stuff, but who knows. I hate to even think it, but maybe our babes might sleep better without mamas in bed with them???? I dunno. I think having DH sleep with him on the weekend is a good idea.

[dachshund mom]

Long shot here, but DD can not sleep with a blanket. She will kick, squirm and roll around even after she gets if off.

Other than that, all I can say is it's a phase and it'll get better.

[Angelorum]

One odd suggestion I'll throw in because I just recently figured it out. My 10 month old was having periods of really restless sleep, squirming a lot, needing to be nursed back down every 40 min etc. I finally realized that a lot of the times, it's because he has to pee and he's either not waking up enough to actually go, or he just doesn't want to go in his diaper. It took me a while to figure out because his diapers are still wet, so he's peeing there at least a little. I keep a little potty by the bed now, and when I wake up enough to realize how squirmy he's being I sit him on it. He does not like it! I usually nurse him while he's sitting there, which is awkward, but preferable to a crying baby. If he has to go, he empties his bladder within 2 minutes and then I can put a fresh diaper on him and nurse him back to sleep. He sleeps so much better after going potty, it's definitely worth the extra night time hassle.

[ewe+lamb]

OK how about this one then - separation anxiety - at about this time babies realise that there are not part of mamma, this is the big step for them, if we go back millions of years and were still on all fours to walk and not bipedal then our babies would be born at around 18 months of pregnancy and able to walk and be reasonably autonomous, but because of the way humans evolved we are upright and have a smaller pelvic area and larger brain hence our babies being born so helpless, so at around this time separation anxiety is common in our babies and they panic when they realise that mamma isn't there beside them.

Couple that with teething - those little things take a long time to come through so I'm not convinced that your dr is completely correct, all that jaw bone to work through before we can even see the slightest white bump on the gum - its the most painful thing - just think about the wisdom teeth and we only - if we're very unlucky - have four these babies have 20 teeth to push through. We found that the homeopathic cammomile and arnica works for us as our kids react to the over the counter drugs, could be that, maybe too hot - our kids always kick off their covers no matter what it is, sleeping areas should, idealy, be around 18-20° - not easy to control during a heat wave, I know - it's happened to us to, but something to keep in mind.

The peeing thing could really be it also - that's a good suggestion and keeping a potty beisde the bed could do no harm.

Also some babies are just not as good sleepers as others, our kids are hopeless sleepers and even at nearly 5 years old ds just can't make it through the night by himself, it's got nothing to do with nursing or anything like that - he just wakes up and that's the way he works - not easy when nearly 8 years down the line I can count on one hand when dd and then ds have slept through the night, and then I've woken up to see if they are ok because it's so unusual, get rid of the clocks, stop counting and only consider it 'waking up' if you actually have to physically get out of the bed - these things have helped me resolve my interrupted nights, may not be useful to you but I thought I'd mention what has helped me work through the difficult nights.

Hope you manage to resolve this and you get a good nights sleep - or if you really need to go get a nap during the afternoon, sometimes that's worked wonders for me, get dh to take a long walk with baby and snuggle down to get some well earned sleep.

[lunarlady]

My DD was a thrasher, and still is. She would kick like crazy, roll around, kick covers off then pull them back up, hit/slap DH and I, all in her sleep. I finally caved. Around 12 months I set up a twin bed in her room. DD would co-sleep with one of us (usually me) in that bed, and the other parent would sleep peacefully in our bed. By 18 months DD was nightweaned and I was sneaking back to my own bed when her trashing would wake me up, and by about age 2 I could leave before she was fully asleep. Now I leave while she is still awake and she is fine with it. (She's 3 now.) I wasn't really planning to kick her out of our family bed, but DH and I both needed more sleep then we got with such an active little monster inbetween us, and we were both tired of being driven to the edges of the bed by the physical attacks of our little bundle of joy. FWIW, I think we all sleep better now that DD is in her own bed. She usually comes in at sunrise (about 5:30 here) to crawl between us and snuggle happily, so she knows she is still welcome to come to our room/bed if she wants to.