Waking up screaming in the middle of the night - update post #9

[belltree]

The last couple nights have been aweful around here. My almost 14month old has always been waking up every 1-2 hrs to nurse, occasional he would sleept 2-3 hr intervals. But the last three nights, on top of his other waking times, he woke up screaming, he was unconsolable, arching backwards, wanting to be carried, not just held. He screamed and cried for a good 25min before I finally could calm him down, he latched and slowly drifted back to sleep. Alltogether almost an hour had passed. I am getting exhausted and frustrated.

It's not teething (we just finished the molars).

Any ideas or suggestion show to handle the situation?

[DevaMajka]

My first thought was food intolerances or digestive pains. Ds wakes more and fusses when he had mucousy (sometimes even with just mushy) poop the previous (or following) day. With ds, I don't think it's actually allergy related- I think it's just food that's hard to digest, and it bothers his stomach/gut.

It sounds like your ds's could be stomach related. Arching his back, wanting to be upright and moving, etc. Is his poop normal?

Could he be getting a cold? Maybe an earache or something?

[AustinMom]

Could it be night terrors? 

My son has this when he wakes up sometimes, he's started to have nightmares, which are different.  Maybe look into that?

[belltree]

His poop is different, very liquidy. We've had phases of that and never really figured out a cause.. I'll keep that in mind, he's been eating really badly as well.

A runny nose is a constant since winter started around here, so yes, there could be an earinfection as well. Maybe some garlic oil would be good and not do harm.

Night terrors. I didn't know about those before. I had been very busy with job interviews and such last couple days, so I have not been very attentive towards him lately. Poor guy.

[CrunchyChristianMama]

I was going to guess night terrors too when I saw your thread title.  My DD has had them on occasion and they are exhausting physically and emotionally.

[Shannie77]

We went through about 2-3 months of my DD waking up screaming hysterically when she was 2.  It was horrible.  It didn't quite fit the description of night terrors.  We never figured out what it could be, but eventually it settled down.  It often took one hour to calm her down, we would also have to immediately leave the bedroom.  A change of scenery seemed to help and sometimes giving her something to eat.

I feel for you.  Those months were really hard on all of us.

[DevaMajka]

Originally Posted by belltree 

His poop is different, very liquidy. We've had phases of that and never really figured out a cause.. I'll keep that in mind, he's been eating really badly as well.

A relatively easy thing you could do is keep a food journal for him. Write down everything he eats, and then how he sleeps. If you are bf'ing, you might want to write down what you eat too. However, I think that ds's digestive troubles are from foods that he eats directly, and not anything through my milk- that's just my gut feeling, so I could be wrong.

Oh, something else- watch for undigested food in his poop. IMO, a little bit is normal, and if the poop is solid or normal looking, it's probably ok. But if he has a ton of undigested food in watery or mucousy poop, you might want to try taking that food out and see what happens.

Raisins are a big one here for mucousy poops, and waking up uncomfortable. It lasts about 3 days after eating raisins, depending on how many he eats.

[cyclamen]

Based on the watery poops, I agree with the posters who suggested keeping a food journal.

Another thing I've learned from watching my daughter is sometimes she was waking up in the middle of the night to pee, and she didn't always want to go in her diaper OR she did go in her diaper and didn't like how it felt.  When she was younger, for a while I'd wake up and hold her over a potty bowl and she would pee and go right back to sleep.  But that stopped workign after a while....

[belltree]

A quick update - our little guy got sick, we spent the weekend in the hospital; he spiked a fever of 106.5 in the middle of the night and was non-responsive. Ibuprofen only barely brought the fever down, so off to the ER we went. He got hit with a bad case of strep throat plus ear infection, plus ended up being dehydrated, although we nursed a lot.... He got a bad rash as well, and is just exhausted, but doing better after 36hrs on antibiotics. The fever is not anymore spiking that high and we are back home...

Poor little boy. I feel bad for not having him checked out earlier. I hope that was the reason for his change in behavior and night time screamings.

DHs is now sick with strep as well....

[cyclamen]

:(  Hope your baby feels better soon!

[brennan]

Awwww hugs!  Hope everyone feels better soon

[DevaMajka]

I'm glad he's doing better :)