Ask the Internet
From a rookie mom to the rest of you…
What would you do if your kid suddenly started waking up to play for an hour in the middle of the night? Lay him down, he screams. (And we don’t do that here.) Rock him, he coos and smiles at you with wide-awake eyes. He’s not hungry and won’t nurse. Sometimes it’s 10 or 11 pm. That’s do-able. It’s 3 am that’s not so do-able. He’s started “napping” at supper time and then staying up later, too, and is getting 3-4 less hours of sleep/day than he was a few weeks ago.
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November 25th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Taryn used to wake up like that! I would sit in the living room holding her while my eyelids are drooping, and her big brown eyes would just stare up at me and smile! I just tried to keep her up a little bit later. Ry will grow out of it soon … I hope!
November 25th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Rock Rock Rock….We would rock Becca for hours. Some days it just did not seem worth it, others it was so peaceful. Now my gorgeous toddler will not allow me to rock her EVER! It is tiring but does not last forever, promise!
November 26th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Yeah, You don’t wanna hear my opinion. We let SF ‘Cry it out’. It sucked for a few days…but sleep overrode sympathy for the crying baby…(I’m sorry)
You can ignore this comment…I understand.
November 26th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
This is a hard one! Here are some suggestions to try.
Try to push through the evening naps during suppertime. This could be causing him to wake up.
When he wakes up, don’t do anything to stimulate him. Just rock him and keep the room dark and quiet. If he’s coo-ing, don’t coo back or engage him. Just cradle him and try to get him to enter a calm, relaxed state.
You may have already tried this stuff, but it’s all I can think of! Good luck!
p.s. we do a little bit of crying out. If the crying lasts more than 10-15 minutes (which is rare), I pick him up.
November 26th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
We did a lot of rocking and pleading for T and S when they were that age. I eventually did the unmentionable crying it out though. I agree with Mommy off the record with not stimulating him or encouraging the waking behaviour. He hopefully will figure out it is pretty boring and sleep. As also mentioned trying to keep his naps away from the evening may help.
November 27th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
I wish I had an easy answer for you. My youngest still wakes up in the middle of the night sometime wanting to play.
I do rock him, but I also pat him gently and rhythmically on the back, or rub his back in small circular patterns while he’s lying in bed. Good luck!
November 27th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
It’s been a few days since your post … how’s it going? Is he getting better?
November 27th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
His cold is much better - his sleeping is not so much!