Until 2 months ago my son slept around 11 hours straight each night. We had a nightly routine. We said goodnight to our stuffed animals, said a prayer, said our love yous, and said goodnight. Lights out, door shut. I could hear him talking to himself for about 10 minutes or so and then all was silent till morning. Well I don't know what happened. But 2 months ago he suddenly started screaming and crying non stop for me to lay down with him. I checked on him made sure he wasn't sick or anything. He was fine. Figured he had a nightmare or something. Which has happened before. I've had to lay down with him before to get him to go to sleep in the middle of the night a time or two. Its never been a big deal. UNTIL NOW. I layed down with him, he fell back to sleep. I snuck back out of the bed. An hour and a half later he woke up screaming and crying for me. So I went back in and spent the rest of the night in his bed. The next night he refused to go to sleep without me. He screamed and cried for over an hour after I put him to bed. After I layed down with him again and he fell asleep, I snuck out and again about 3 hours later he woke up screaming and crying for me. This has continued for the last 2 months. I've tried the letting him cry it out, that hasn't worked. I've tried the sitting next to his bed and getting further and further away and that hasn't worked. I don't know what else to do.
I am a breast cancer survivor and ever since being on chemo I get very little sleep as it is. Now I'm getting hardly any sleep at all. He will go to sleep fine as long as I'm in the bed with him. However, if he wakes up in the middle of the night and I'm not there and he starts screaming and crying when I come back no matter what time it is, he may or may not fall back to sleep.
Sorry this was so long. If anyone has any other suggestions I would love to hear them. Thanks.
Oh you poor thing ! I too went thru this not to long ago, I had this perfect child ( still do
I don't know if your child is having seizures, but I would suggest making an appt with your ped or neuro and explain the sudden changes. If there are no obvious reasons for a change in sleep patterns, there may be a biological cause, and it would be worth talking to your dr about it. Hope this was of some help, and that everyone gets more sleep soon.
I can certainly relate to this topic too...
My ds (2.5) has night terrors. Not nightmares, night
terrors. A nightmare is a bad dream, and most often you can go in
and say "it's just a bad dream" or something to that effect and then
it's over when they wake up. With a night terror, if you go in to
comfort your child you become whatever it is that has them upset.
Often times they can appear awake but are still asleep. Our
pediatrician told us there is nothing you can do to comfort during a
night terror they just have to get through it. Typically they
don't last longer than 30 minutes. He's been having them on/off
for a long time (often coinciding w/ ear infections) however recently
they became so bad they were every single night and extremely violent.
Night terrors as well as nightmares are often caused from stress and/or
a lack of sleep. Are your children getting less sleep due to
giving up a nap? Have there been any sudden changes in their
environment? Changing the sheets? Move to a big bed from
the crib/toddler bed? Change in their daily schedule? Any of
these things could trigger the behavior. If you can determine the
source of the trigger it may be able to prevent what is causing the
sleep disturbance. But then again, it could simply be the
sensation of falling which would account for the frequent wakings.
I've heard lots of people swear by the weighted blankets. For us
we found that whenever we changed our ds' sheets and/or comforter to
wash them he'd have night terrors and/or tantrums. He didn't like
the texture of the fabric of his other sheets and he seems to need his
comforter.
mom2matthew ~ Have you tried putting a body pillow in the bed next to
your ds? What about giving him a picture of you to put on a
pillow beside him in the bed? Does he have some sort of lovey
(blanket, stuffed animal, toy) that he is attached to?
My ds was having what I thought was just night terrors that lasted 3-4
hours! It turns out he was going straight from a night terror to a
tantrum. He was physically harming himself... head banging, hitting,
kicking, throwing himself off the bed, scratching himself until he was
bleedding, etc...
twinhokies ~ When my ds has his tantrums and/or terrors he will only
come to me and will not go to my husband. I'm a stay-at-home mom, so I
honestly think it's just because he spends all day with me that he only
wants me. My husband feels very helpless and frustrated that he can't
help, but unfortunately there is nothing he can do. So you aren't
alone in that aspect, either.
I would talk to your doctors and see if they can better offer some
suggestions. And keep trying different things. I will keep
you all in our thoughts and prayers. I know how truly emotionally
and physically draining it can be not to get the sleep you need!
Good luck!
Christie
My wife is fighting this now as we speak. One of our 2yr old twins (other one is perfectly fine) has gone from perfect sleeper to nightmare. CAN't let him scream, he'll go for hours and hurt himself as well as waking his brother up. He just whines, cries, kicks, screams for about an hour every night. Right now he's taken to crying with his mouth closed. He has to have my wife in the room with him or it's just all over with. Wakes up about every three hours and takes about 30 minutes to an hour to put him back to sleep every time. Will not keep covers on himself, kicks them off instantly. Sleeps very fitfully, thrashes a lot and bolts upright every so often. Sound like a sensory issue or nightmare issue??? We don't know what to do with him. My wife is running on empty as she has to be the one to get up with him in the middle of the night, he won't have anything to do with me. Any advice would be helpful. This seems to be the same issue that "momtomatthew" has above. We cannot find anything that will soothe him at night. We have yet to try weighted items, might trying calming music soon. We have a fan for white noise right now (and because it's hot). Thanks for your help.
WELL MOM TOMATTHEW, GOD BLESS YOU!! I HAVE A BEST FRIEND IN REMISSION WITH COLON CANCER and she and I are sons ar all 4 1/2 so YES we all need are sleep but especially my g/f and yourself.I started goin threw this nite wakeups last oct.04 he too is PDD-NOS.he was dx'd in feb.04 with partial complex seizures never knew it but his eyes would roll up n back ever since he was a baby but really thought the staring was when he was waking up but then fal asleep quickly deep again.so after a overnite EEG in the hospital that feb,. they confirmed seizrures.he was on medicine and then in aug,.they took him off basically weaned him w/diastat on hand if needed.oct. w/special preschool in a.m.s n a typical setting 3 afternoons a wk..onsettted the seizures but didnt find this confirmed till THIS PAST APRIL it was a happy day for my son and I we hardly had sleep for about 6months.so I read your post and omg sounds like what I went through.so dr.s thought it was NIGHT TERRORS,.WHEN we were thr in march for 3days but nothin showed on eeg,MURPHYS LAW i guess.but they were gettin more n more,he doesnt convulse,but screams at night wakin up not knowin who I was.He is taking depakote for this and no more wake ups hes doin much better.I have 2 links for you night terrors and seizures.any questions u can pm me or use my email on here..hope this helps..and good luck hang in there
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