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View Full Version : OK what is it? Seperation anxiety in the middle of the night?



Nomsie
17-06-2009, 16:38
As most of you would know from my previous whingey threads, my guys have never been great sleepers. Beau in particular has always been hard.

We went to a day stay locally a few weeks ago for sleep, and since then they have been ok. Lincoln has actually been pretty good, but Beau, just ok. During the night they were doing pretty well, we cut out a lot of the feeding back to sleep rubbish I was having to do every hour.

But again, he seems to have gone back to it.

I can get them into bed no worries. They go out like a light around 6:30-7 without patting, rocking or feeding. Ok, so they have a dummy.

But, come about 1am, he wakes and there is literally NO consoling him. I can feed him, and put him back to bed and he will still scream. He WILL NOT take the dummy, and if I put him to sleep in my arms, he will wake as soon as he is back in the cot and resume screaming.

At first I thought it was teething, but he seems to be alright during his day naps. (Except for now, trying to put him down and he cries when I am not in the room. As soon as I go in there he is ok, but as soon as I take my hand off him he whips his head around to make sure I am still there. I don't want him to rely on me to fall asleep, I want him to do it for himself.) [ok, just went in there and stood beside the cot with my hand lightly on his back until he fell asleep :doh: ]

Anyway.. he has just learnt to crawl, and follows me when I leave the room. Previous to this, he hasn't really cared when I left the room.

Is he waking up in the middle of the night and realising I am not there? If I bring him into our bed, he does go back to sleep. But it's not a practice I am keen on, as DP is a deep sleeper, so that's not entirely safe for one, and when his brother wakes up and I have to go to him, it means while I am gone there is no barrier on his side of the bed so he could easily roll off. And, well I just love NOT sleeping with a baby- I sleep deeper and better.

Has anyone else experienced this, or does it sound like a plausable theory?

(Sorry if it rambles a bit and doesn't make sense, wrote most of it whilse going in and out of the boys room trying to settle Beau...)

Lily_Pad
17-06-2009, 17:24
I was going to say it could be - but then I re-read that he has just learnt to crawl. I remember hearing that when babies learn a new skill they can be a bit unsettled after that. Maybe that's it?

Nomsie
17-06-2009, 17:33
It would coincide, but to me, it doesn't feel like that is the reason. He sleeps fine during the day (ok, could go for longer but I'm picking my battles right now), and is happy enough to go to bed of a night. We do the whole dinner, bath, quiet time, milk, bed thing and they both go to sleep almost straight away. THey have another feed about 9:30-10ish, and back to bed fine.

Come 1am (and then again at 4am!) he is awake and screaming, and there isn't a darn thing I can do about it. (except bring him into our bed, but as I said, not happy with that solution either.)

The kicker is, if he wasn't a twin, I wouldn't care as much. I would say fine, but you stay in bed and I will come in every few minutes to check on you and help reassure you ntil you put yourself back to sleep. (I did the whole gentle thing for 7 months, it hasn't worked, unfortunately I am onto CIO much to my dismay) But I stress he will wake his twin...

TonkaTruck
18-06-2009, 14:37
I don't know what could be causing his late night freak outs, but I'm just wondering, how long is it once he falls asleep before you try to leave/put him into bed? I remember hearing that babies sleep in reverse to adults, they go into REM sleep first and then deeps sleep about 20 minutes after that.
My guess is that if you're leaving him or putting him into bed before that first 20 minutes or so is up he's waking up easily because he's not in a heavy sleep yet. Perhaps try staying in the room with him for a little bit longer. Have a cd player in the room on loop to mask the sound of you leaving just in case but if you leave any earlier than that 20 minute period he's going to sense you moving not just hear you.

If that's not the case and you ARE waiting for him to be in a heavy sleep... I honestly have no ideas :(