The problem is that Elly no longer sleeps. And when I say no sleep, I mean screams for an hour at a time throughout the night a couple times a night, every night.
And she doesn't really nap. And when I say she doesn't nap, I mean she takes three 20 minute naps a day, tops. If I'm super lucky, every now and then, she'll sleep (in my arms because the moment I put her down she wakes up wailing) about 40 minutes. But those days are rare.
I don't get it. This has been going on for about a month and half. She was like this before moving, so I don't feel like it's because of the move. She has the same routine every day, I am a pretty routine girl myself. She's been trying a few new foods here and there, but she's enjoying them and her system seems to be processing them just fine. (Output is working just as well as her input!)
She has the exact same bed time routine at the exact same time every night. At 7:00 PM she gets a bath, rocks together with either mom or dad and gets a bottle. She sometimes drifts off with no problems, sometimes it's torture.
And then the hell begins. She'll sleep for a couple hours, then wakes up with night-terrors. (Or whatever the baby equivalent is to night terrors.) She startles herself awake and just starts SCREAMING!!!!
It's flat out awful. Because there's absolutely nothing that will stop the crying. She's not hungry, she isn't sick. She just doesn't want to sleep. I give her teething tablets for any pain, if she's got a fever from teething, I give her baby Tylenol. Nothing seems to work.
It kills me to no end that she doesn't sleep. Not only do Stoofy and I not sleep, it kills me that she doesn't either. But what kills me even more is that she wakes up early and is always chipper. Like a cartoon chipmunk chipper.
She's laughing and smiling and it's like nothing happened. I kind of think a gremlin takes over her body after 6:00 PM every night, and then evades her body by 6:00 AM. I really can't think of any other explanation because baby night-terrors sounds even more farfetched.
I mean, what the hell could cause a nightmare for a baby? Flashbacks to birth? What else could there be? And at what point do you even start dreaming in life? And if she's dreaming, what is she dreaming of? It's not like she knows what the lottery is, so she can't dream about winning it the way that I do. So I just don't get it.
Just like I don't get any sleep. It's time to start stocking up on coffee for mumma and baby Unisom for Elly. (That's a joke, I'm not actually drugging my child... unless someone finds a legal loophole of course. Like I said, I'd sign off on just about anything right now.)
Oh Momma, I wish I felt your pain. Shaw has always been a good sleeper. However, I become a hardass at night. When he was little and would wake up, I would go in, give him his paci, turn his bear back on and out I would go. I would NEVER take him out of his crib. He knew once he was in there, it was for the rest of the night. Unless he was sick, of course. I also let him cry. Yes, the screaming gets old, but as long as she isn't in pain, or sick, let her cry. Eventually she will figure out that Mom or Dad isn't coming to look at her, and will go back to sleep. This doesn't happen after the first time, or even the tenth, it may take some time. This is my advice. Again, Shaw has never been a bad sleeper if all healthy. Have you tried benedryl? I know I know drugs aren't the answer, but sometimes...they are! lol It might help. Not a full dose, just like 1/4 tsp. Hang in there, someday she will sleep :-)
ReplyDeleteWe're in shared quarters right now. So letting her scream isn't much of an option for awhile longer. I've done the cry it out before and it helped a lot once she got the hang of it. But until we're back in our own place, CIO isn't much of an option. :-/
ReplyDeleteDoes she fall asleep drinking her bottle? My son was like that and he never actually slept through the night until we eliminated him falling asleep with a bottle. He gets his milk, than is put into bed. The first night he was up all night screaming, but after that, we finally get sleep at night.
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