meltdowns after waking up

[journeywooz]

dd wakes up very grumpy in the morning and after her naps to the point where she throws terrible tantrums where she bangs her head against the floor/walls/tables/anything hard.   she has been doing this for a few months, every single day.  i thought it would be related to teething, but she's nearly done with her molars.

during the day, she's fine.  absolutely great, sweet and plays well.  her language is taking leaps and leaps.  it's only immediately after she wakes up--and nothing helps, cuddling, anything.  only nursing will and she chews at my nipple and it's making me sick and frustrated

she naps regularly for the most part, about a hour daily.  and bedtime has always been stable for the most part, but lately irregular  due to a cross-country move (but the meltdowns have been happening way before that).  but it doesn't matter how early or late she sleeps, she wakes up right when the sun rises.  she flails around, butts her head against mine, sits on my face.  i try to redirect her, take her off my face and let her know that it hurts me.  but it really gets to the point where i feel so frustrated.  i try to hug her, love her through all this, but it's so frustrating when she's almost always clawing at my nipples and biting me.  i feel so tired and angry.  i feel like all this work with attachment parenting (i wasn't raised that way at all) is amounting up to nothing.  i try my best not to react and yell because i know it doesn't help anything at all--but i've gone to the point where i feel so fed up and can't help it.  i've even tried aldort's SALVE formula, but dd is very strong willed and insistent with everything.

she insists on nursing ALL morning and for a hour after she wakes up from nap.   i'm pregnant (1 1/2 month) now with our second and nursing is turning into a huge struggle between us.  she gnaws at my nipple and keeps pinching my boob.. i've given her a doll, tried to redirect her, work on her latch, give her food/raw milk.  nothing seems to be working. 

remember, all this has been happening way before our move and pregnancy.  i feel so exhausted and drained.  any tips or tricks i'm missing?  has anyone else gone through this?  any advice, wise mamas?

[sosurreal09]

OK maybe I can help some. My DD is 22 m/o now and she has always woken at sunrise, no matter what time she goes to bed.

This may sound silly but I try to get her to sleep at sunset (which has been like 8:30/9 here) so come 7pm all the lights go off (with windows open) and we do a bath. Then we put on a fresh dipe and have "cave time" (that's our name for it. My DD gets SO EXCITED for it. She can't wait and it has made bedtime not so much of a struggle.

So say at 8:00 we are in our room and the lights are out. We get a big pile of books and a candle. We read all the books by candlelight, we do shadow puppets, tickle, horse around mildly, and we snuggle. *I* do unlimited booby time during "Cave time" but since you are pregnant IDK how you feel about it.

She goes to sleep without a struggle now.

In the AM I have to get up with her at sunrise or she does what your DD does. I think it's important to remember though that this is natures "alarm clock" and what our bodies have pretty much been programmed to do, go to bed at sundown and rise with the sun.

So the minute she is up we just go downstairs. She is all about nursing in the AM but mostly STTN. So I make sure to give her a banana right when we get downstairs so it fills her up a bit and about 30mins later she has eggs.

NAPS OMG naps....well this is how naps go for us. If I can even get her to nap (she is really phasing it out at this point) if she sleeps too long (say 2hrs) she wakes up hysterical and tantrums FOREVER! I really hate waking her from a nap though b/c well it's my only "time off"...

So we are trying to do 30min cat nap now around 1pm , this seems to work better although I do have to wake her or sometimes she will be napping on my back (we don't have a car and I walk a few+ miles a day to run errands or w/e) and she will wake up from a car starting in a parking lot or something.

So anyways when we do have the full blown tantrums, sleep related, I just take her outside and try to do something fun and distracting. My DD is very intense and sometimes it won't or barely will work. Some days she needs to go for a walk (she has to go on my back b/c we don't have sidewalks and it's a busy route) but you could certainly use a stroller.

With your pregnancy I think it may be helpful to try and implement an alone time so to speak. I have tried but it has failed, but I'm still trying. I set up her "bedroom" but it's really just a playroom that has a bed in it she won't sleep in, but it's available anyways...

She has a lot of toys up there and books and I try to have some time where I can relax in the neighboring room (watch a movie or nap or something) while she plays and has some space for herself in her room. She is OK with this maybe 15 mins right now but we are working on it anyways. I think it's good to show her she can play and have some time to herself to be creative without mama right there. I am available to her though since I'm right in the next room.

That may not sound very AP but she's getting older and she is very securely attached and I need some mental space in the day for me too. She's not unhappy playing in there and I don't see that as not being AP. Especially where you will be having another baby soon she will have to entertain herself more.

[crunchy_mommy]

I don't have any magical solution because we've been dealing with this seemingly forever. But there are a couple of things that seem to help DS.... The most successful one is singing. I can't figure out exactly why that is, but he is so much happier when I sing him a couple of wake-up songs. It kind of resets him, I guess. He is very auditory so I don't know how well it would work for your DD, but maybe explore whether she responds really well to one particular sense (other things I can think of might be looking at pictures, reading, drawing, a bath or shower, etc.) Another thing that helps is a sweet snack as soon as he wakes (i.e. piece of fruit, pancakes with maple syrup, etc.)... And, this will sound counter-intuitive, but DS does best when *I* wake him up, which TBH I rarely do because it goes against everything I know lol, but he is so much happier than when he wakes up on his own. OH also if she's still in diapers -- sometimes my DS sleeps later in the morning if we give him a new diaper when he wakes up with the sun. Unfortunately we don't do it very consistently (only when he specifically asks for one), but when we do that, he'll go back to sleep & only nurse twice in the morning instead of 100000 times!!

[lovepickles]

DD who is 19 months is a SUPER GRUMP when she wakes from sleep for the last few months. She gets plenty of sleep ... I think it is just hard for her to transition back into the real world and prolonged teething. She has been working on her molars since 16 months and it has been very hard. Here is what works for us.

-Daddy or I sit on a ball and bounce her in arms singing "old macdonald had a farm"

-We call daddy on the phone after naps when he is at work (on speakerphone)

-We replay an old voicemail of Daddy singing

-We see what the kitties are doing and go find them

-We play with bubbles or wash our hands

-We look for people outside the window

-We look for her favorite toy of the moment

-We start a totally NEW activity

Basically I ask her if she wants to do something and we GO do it. Sometimes she fusses for a few minutes but we just switch up activities until she forgets she was unhappy or I figure out what is really wrong. Sometimes she has gas, etc.

<3

[journeywooz]

thank you all for replying.  dd used to love the bath and it would always be a part of our bedtime routine but she despises them now.  it's become a huge struggle.

she just woke up from a nap (which was around 30-40 minutes) screaming bloody murder.  i nursed her both sides and my nipples are chapped, raw, and so so sore.  after around a hour, i try to unlatch her, explain that i'm hurting and that i can get her a drink or something to eat.... another fit yelling, banging head, biting my shirt/skin.  i'm so exhausted.  i am at the point where i feel like weaning, but know that will not help anything.  she has been waking up from naps very sweaty too.  

it's really hard trying to distract and redirect her.  i will try some of the things you all mentioned.  many thanks.

[sosurreal09]

Could it be night terrors?

Also as/if your supply dwindles I'm sure she will be upset for a while.

[crunchy_mommy]

Originally Posted by sosurreal09 

Also as/if your supply dwindles I'm sure she will be upset for a while.

That. So in your case, weaning actually might help??? I know the less DS is 'allowed' to nurse, the less he obsesses over it. If it simply weren't an option, he could accept that (after a few rough days, that is!) I haven't completely weaned DS but he's only allowed to nurse at certain times. Maybe something like that would help you if you don't want to totally wean -- cutting out the morning nursing session completely? Give her something really yummy to replace it, maybe homemade popsicles or smoothies or whatever you think she'll like...

[Comtessa]

Oh, OP, I so feel your pain right now!  I remember those early-pregnancy days when DD was nursing nonstop.  When my milk started to dry up, she started doing a lot of the same things -- the chewing and clawing, especially -- which I think was her way of expressing frustration at the minimal amount of milk she was getting when she nursed.  We tried to minimize it by giving her a bottle of cow's milk at her usual nursing times, and then letting her nurse after she'd finished the bottle, so she wasn't nursing *hungry.*  It helped somewhat.  You didn't say how old your DD is, so it might not work for you depending on her developmental level, but with my DD, I found that one way to minimize the endless nursing was to set guidelines about when she could nurse -- for us, we established it as bedtime, naptime, and waking-up time.  If she asked to nurse during the day, I'd ask, "is it bedtime?  is it naptime?" and then tell her she could nurse then.  She tantrumed about it for a few days, but then it became part of our daily rhythm and stopped being an issue (for the most part). 

I don't have much advice for the waking up grumpy piece -- DD usually only does this if I wake her up before she's really done sleeping -- but I find that when she is waking up grumpy, it helps to have an activity planned for the moment she gets out of bed.  "Great!  You're awake!  Let's go call Grandma!"  or "Oh good, you're up from your nap, are you ready for our walk?"  etc.  This frequently distracts her from her grumpiness. 

Today, on the other hand, she's climbing on my lap while I type and whining "Maaaama milk noooooow!!!"  So I suppose it's just an ongoing process... :)