DS has decided that his 3 am wake needs to last 1-2 hours every night. I'm already struggling with his every 1.5 hour wake ups, so this extra long one is making me crazy. We don't do anything differently, but he's babbling and flailing and thinks its party time. Why?! How do I fix this nonsense?
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If it's going on forever and lo isn't hungry, I have dh take her
Hope you get some sleep soon!
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Hugs.
I prayed for lots of patience and would put her back in her crib and tell her it wasn't time to play. She'd fuss and just roll around until she went back to sleep.
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Rock rock rock rock. Pray he will stay down when I put him down. Ha!
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In my experience, when DS has done this, we just had to wait out the wake up. It sucks!
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I heard (and tried) the following - don't acknowledge and keep the lights off so they don't think it's morning time. So I would just lie there and doze while she partied. It was a grindingly brutal time for me on the tiredness front. I think it's just a developmental phase that ends and I don't really know whether what I did was effective!
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Is he happy? Can you just leave him to chill in his crib? Sometimes mine would wake up and she partied for a bit, then eventually realizes that a party of one is lame
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If he is happy I would leave him. We comfort him when he is crying, but less interaction has helped us. Leave the lights off and don't talk any more than necessary. We have a playlist of a couple quiet songs that we play at naptime and bedtime, and I turn it on when I put him in the crib, say goodnight, and then walk out. If I am in the room he will stay awake, but he falls asleep pretty quickly once I leave. If he fusses when I leave I count to 60, and then if he is still crying I will start the process over. It never takes more than twice for us.
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When R woke up in the MOTN and didn't go immediately back to sleep, I would let her be unless she was crying (not fussing). At that time, I would go in, and put her pasci in, pat her on the back, and leave (without turning on the lights, or speaking).
If he's upset, is there any chance he's teething? The only time R put up a fight going back to bed in the MOTN is when she is teething. And teething is the devil, so yeah, no help with that one!
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Agree that less interaction is best. If he's not crying hard I would just leave him. Lots of sleep books say they wake out of habit and will continue to do so if it's reinforced by getting a visit from mom/dad.
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He cried every time I left the room, so I fed him, checked his diaper and PJs, and just had to let him fuss/figure it out for 20 minutes. Then I came back in and sat with him and he went back to sleep in about 5 min after that. He slept til 8 am so it worked! My mission is to be boring
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@grizz: glad it worked out, finally. Yes I'm super boring during the night- when I go in and feed her I don't say anything, just shuffle in, pick her up, feed her, put her back in the crib, shuffle out. She is usually fine and goes back to sleep, but every once in a while she just won't, fussing, crying... Then we change her diaper, maybe hum her bedtime song (still don't talk to her)... But those nights can be brutal an sometimes I end up feeding her less than an hour after the last one.
If I'm not feeding I try to have Dh go in and sooth her since he doesn't have boobs but I think your Dh is away at night, right? Glad you at least got to sleep in this morning.
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This doesn't happen too much for us, but when it does, I treat it as a bedtime. I'll rock till drowsy and lay her in her crib. She'll fuss and maybe cry, but it's usually only 5-10 min, just like before naps. I am NOT having parties in the middle of the night. Except for teething. Teething throws all that out the window.
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We bed-share, but I just try to ignore them. I'll say something about, "It's night, and at night we sleep. Time to sleep, now." But we haven't had too much trouble. If it's for a reason (like illness or discomfort) or if it is clear that "ignoring" is only going to worsen the problem, we'll usually get up. We don't usually go downstairs, but we will sometimes turn on lights and read books together, or play. Usually an hour or so is all it takes before whichever girl is ready to sleep again. Ellie hasn't done it in years, and she was a pretty brutal one in terms of sleep (much like C). She had some issues until she was about 4/4.5 and after that it was pretty smooth sailing. I remember when she was about three and started waking up for the day at about 3:30am. Just... no. I thought I was going to die. But we finally figured out it was because she needed to pee. It didn't solve the problem because she would still stubbornly refuse to use the potty, but at least we knew why. And it did end up resolving.
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I'm with you on the being boring thing. N went through a phase when he was up between 1:30-2:30 every night. It drove me crazy! I left the lights off and sat with him in the glider. If I left him in his crib, he would scream his head off! While I rocked him, I didn't talk and kept my eyes closed because every time I looked at him, he would smile. Cute and annoying at the same time!
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Yep continue being boring!
Didn't always work for me but it sounds like it helped you. The other thing I would do is let her cry a little while... Usually after that she was easier to get back down. I know it sounds mean but she was up for 2-3 hrs often!
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@grizz: Did you ever figure anything out for the long wake ups!? I am now desperate myself. I can only assume this is teething.
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16 comments