Why is ds so upset?

Hi ladies,

I haven't posted on this forum before so let me just quickly say hello, that I am a SAHM named Leah and I have an awesome ds who is going to be one next week.

I have a somewhat hn child but although it has always been a lot of work to keep his needs met, by using attachment parenting, dh and I have and he is a really happy, content boy who is rarley upset.

So for a week now ds has been waking up so easily in the middle of the night with a really angry cry and lots of whole body arching and stiffness. Like I mean every half hour to hour. He has never been a champion sleeper but I am really, really tired which tells me the waking is unusual. The really unusual part though is the crying and arching, as when he used to wake up at night it would just be a bit of restlesness, a few minutes of nursing and back to sleep. Now he often gets more upset when I try to move him to nurse. Then he sometimes nurses for a half hour or more and is still upset and awake. Yes I have tried just walking him or holding him to sooth him back to sleep but he still is upset and often will nurse as what seems a last resort to sooth himself anyways.

His daytime behaviour has also changed, he has gone from content most of the time to fussy most of the time and although I hate to even type it seems really whiny. We could be playing with his most interesting thing and he still won't be really happy, the crying may just be staved off for a short while but the whining cry is still often there. Also before he was so independent he would walk or crawl away from me and explore new things and now he just gets upset if I leave him, even if I am two feet away and spends way more time in my arms. The third day time change I would note is that before if he wanted something or didn't like something he would 'ask' or tell me (by pointing, some signs, walking over to it etc.) and now he goes to the angry cry first thing without trying to communicate in any other way. So I have been modeling 'Oh you don't want to wear your pyjamas anymore' as he is screaming and pulling hysterically on the feet of his pj's 'You can show mama gently that you want to take them off or say mama take off my pj's please' (even though he isn't talking yet.)

The really awful part from my position is I am not mothering the way I want to through this. Last night in the middle of the night I actually said 'Enough already' in a really impatient voice. I am starting to feel like a unattached mother because for the life of me I can't figure out why ds has changed and what I can do to sooth him as none of my bag of tricks is working. I have always been calm and had an easy time soothing him before but not anymore. I feel badly that he is obviously suffering from something and I can't help him. Also I am not really sure how to use gentle parenting at his age level for this type of situation. (Other than not loosing it in the middle of the night I mean.) Do I just talk him verbally through his anger or something else?

There have been no major changes in anything except that ds really started walking five or six days before this started. He had a mild fever the first few days but now seems healthy.

Sorry this got long, thanks in advance for any and all advice.

Leah
( I don't have a neat signature thingy but we co-sleep, bf, sling, no-vax, ec, strive to use gd and am learning so much about it that I didn't know existed before I became a parent and generally think my little guy is the best thing ever!)