Breaking the nurse-to-sleep association. No-Cry Sleep Solution.

[Sonoran Silkies]

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[Xtina]

You guys asked a lot of good questions in the last few posts, and a few suggestions that I should have talked about having done or known about in my original post. But instead of going through all that right now, I just have to say that last night couldn't have gone any worse.

My evening schedule, since I work flextime from home, involves putting him to bed and going to work for the second half of my workday. That usually gets me done with work around 11. I know he wakes up around midnight every night, so I read in bed until his first wake up. No sense in going to sleep just to be woken right up. Well, I went in to nurse him back to sleep and what I found was a wound-up, happy, and incredibly alert baby. I tried nursing him and it didn't work. I sang to him. Nothing. I brought him to bed with me and he proceeded to shake daddy awake and chatter to him. I ended up having to take him downstairs and feed him. It was 2 a.m. before I got him back to bed. Then, he woke up at six this morning. Daddy took that shift. Took him to his playpen and played with him and then cooked breakfast and woke me up at 8. So the baby got about nine hours of sleep last night and I got about six.

But why on earth did he wake up both of those times? He never does that. He's so rarely wide awake and raring to go at that early time in the morning, and the only time he's ever been that awake at 2 a.m. was when we were jet lagged from coming home from Europe and his time zone was all off. It was really frustrating to be ready to go to bed at midnight and then have to play with him for two hours.

 

[Xtina]

I should add that for the first time last night, he had two long stretches of sleep for the first time in a long time. I haven't gotten four hours in a row since I don't remember when. If he only wouldn't have stayed up for 2 hours in the middle, and maybe altered the times he was awake, it would have been fantastic. That two hour wake-up though...that was brutal.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Definitely try to find a copy of the Penelope Leach book. It talks about how to shift your baby's waking hours to meet your needs.

 

[squeakyballs]

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Don't you love No Cry Sleep Solution? I don't think it helped us one bit (and I tried for months), but I have a soft spot for it anyway.

I was in your same situation (breast feeding 3-5 times a night), except, I stuck it out until just before he turned two. It was a little easier to explain by then. I told him that I was too old, and that my milk had gone bad. He had encountered a curdled sippy cup and knew what I meant. It took about a week of me insisting my milk was bad (and occasionally letting him try it, right after I had sneakily drenched them in apple cider vinegar) before he stopped asking.

I'm trying to think of what might help get him through the night, or, at least with fewer wakings... making sure he is full before bed helps a little. Try for something with a bit of protein (greek yogurt, for example) and tank him up before he goes to sleep.

You can also tell him the boobs went to sleep, and he can only nurse when the sun is up. You could even tell him that the milk goes bad at night and try my vinegar trick

I'm sure he'll cry about it, but if it tastes bad then it tastes bad, and he might get the idea to just wait until morning.

 

[squeakyballs]

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Sometimes that is just the way it goes. Unless it happens frequently, I wouldn't worry about it. I know I've had nights where I feel wide awake. He could be going through a growth spurt or something odd.

 

[Xtina]

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This is hilarious!

 

[Xtina]

I just encountered, again, one of the most frustrating parts of my son's sleep problem. Every night around midnight, he wakes up and wants to nurse, which is fine for me. That's a perfect time! The problem happens after he's done nursing. He'll be peacefully going to sleep in my arms, but he'll have these little twitches, that then become bigger twitches. Then he's arching his back and acting like every position I hold him in hurts and nothing can make him comfortable. He starts pushing away from me, so I put him in his crib to keep from dropping him (he pushes and wriggles hard!). He continues to act pained and then cry until he moves out of a "wanting to sleep" phase into a fully awake and angry phase. Some nights, just to list it all out, he's actually really happy, but that's frustrating in a different way.

I know plenty of things can make a baby hurt: gas, teething. But I normally try to stay on top of those things. He gets simethicone every night before bed, and tonight he also got ibuprofen since he seemed to be a little warm this evening.

Does anyone recognize this behavior? It hurts me so much to know he's hurting and to not be able to pin it down and make it stop. I know I'm all over the place listing out his problems, but that's because he has a lot of different problems that will crop up on different nights! I've been keeping a sleep log so I'm getting better at identifying what's going on. I just want to know if there's something I'm missing that I can address to help him sleep better. Tonight he acted like he wanted to sleep so bad, but he just hurt too much.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I assume that you are patting his back to burp him? Holding my sons' bellies on my shoulder, with them bent over it as I gently bounced/walked, seemed to help get gas out.

I don't think I would be giving simethecone, or any medicine on a recurring and regular basis without doctor's instructions. Think about what you are eating in the afternoon and early evening that could cause gas (lots of veggies cause gas), and try avoiding them.

 

[KelBelle]

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I second this as well. It really, really sounds like something you are eating may be causing a lot of his tummy troubles.

You might want to consider looking more into the value of a fever as well. A fever is the body's way of fighting a virus. Knocking it down prevents the body from mounting all of it's defenses. I never give my kids anything for a fever unless it is dangerously high or if they are extremely uncomfortable. Another thing to remember is that ibuprofen can be damaging to the stomach lining and if he is already having troubles there is a chance that the ibuprofen will only increase the discomfort he is having.

Check this out: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/119/1/e124 I would get the little guy on probiotics ASAP and stop the simethicone. How long has he been taking that? It looks like he could potentially be having issues from that even. {{hugs}} I sure hope something works to help his little belly feel better very soon.