Things have been tough around here for me the past few weeks. Besides Jason knowing about it, no one else really does and that's okay. I'll snap out of it eventually.
Mikail has had a really difficult time with sleep since the end of June. For the first few months of his life he had a lot of, what we learned were, night terrors. He would wake up after about 2-3 hours of sleep and scream and scream and scream. He would seem wide awake, but wasn't and would be completely inconsolable. It would usually take us about 15 minutes to wake him up and then once he calmed down he would go back to sleep.
This has changed a bit now. After about 2-3 hours of sleep he will wake up with a yelp or a cry or a scream and then be wide awake, often for 2-3 hours, being deathly afraid to fall back asleep. This latest development doesn't seem like night terrors to me, since he is truly awake and responding. All we can think is that it is a combination of teething his molars, separation anxiety and maybe a nightmare.
He used to go down for a nap so easily. Stick him in his crib and he'd get himself to sleep in no time. I could leave the room and check on him within 5-10 minutes and he'd be fast asleep. Now, it is a fight to get him to sleep on his own. Actually it is impossible. We tried it again last week and even after 5 hours, he refused to go to sleep and just cried and cried and cried. I held him. I rocked him. I lay down on the floor beside his crib. I gave him water. The list goes on and on. Nothing.
We have been sticking to his bedtime routine (snack, bath, book, bed) religiously, so he knows what to expect. The last two nights he has slept much better, but I can't sleep because I think he's going to wake up screaming at any given moment.
I am exhausted.
I am weepy.
I am not thinking straight.
I wish I knew how to help him. It's not like he is purposefully wanting to keep us awake and be awake for hours at a time at night. You can see how tired he is, but he just won't go back to sleep when he has one of these episodes.
Yesterday we were in church and Mikail was in his element since there were so many people he could charm. One sweet little old lady, whom he had been trying (successfully) to charm, came up to me after the service and said 'He's just lovely'.
And he is.
Now, how to deal with this sleep issue?
1 comment:
You are probably trying everything you can. The only 2 other things I can think of:
Check what he is eating before bed (allergy or reaction of a not good sort, sometimes this affects bed wetting, so maybe sleep issues?)
Play the Bible on CD. Just record yourselves reading, or buy something. It worked for me as a child, and the bi product is that he will memorize a lot of scripture!
Keep trucking, you are doing wonderful and God has given you so much love for that little man!
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