As you can probably gather from the name of my blog, Iyla didn’t used to like sleep much.
In fact for the first seven months of her life, she didn’t sleep unless it was in my arms with my boob in her mouth.
When things were so bad that none of us were getting any sleep, we spoke to a sleep expert who helped us come up with a plan that we were happy with. One night I put her in her cot, in her own room and sat there next to her while she went berserk. It wasn’t nice but the fact that I was sitting next to her made it bearable, and it worked.
She went from not sleeping anywhere to sleeping in her cot and waking for two night feeds, which I was happy with.
Then when she was ten months she started sleeping through the night. I was sure it was a one off the first time it happened but it kept on happening, and I kept on feeling grateful every single time it did.
That was a year ago and apart from two occasions where she has had a stomach bug and slept in our bed, she has slept in her own room for between 10-13 hours a night.
UNTIL LAST NIGHT.
She didn’t eat the chicken curry that I had cooked last night which was no great surprise, so Dad2BabyInsomniac made her some cheese on toast which she ate followed by some plum crumble and custard.
This was then washed down with milk and because she was so tired, she went to bed about ten minutes later at 6.45pm.
BIG MISTAKE.
I can only assume that eating so close to bedtime, or maybe the fact that it was cheese led to her having disturbed sleep / nightmares.
When we went to bed at about 11pm, she was making noises through her monitor so I went in and found her sitting up looking upset. I picked her up for a cuddle and that was it then, I couldn’t put her back in bed. I brought her in with us where she was being all delirious, she kept pointing at things which weren’t there which was a bit scary so I kept on hugging her and trying to shush her back to sleep.
It didn’t work. She didn’t know what was going on so the next FOUR HOURS involved trying to get her to sleep in our bed, her bed, giving her milk and giving her cuddles but she wouldn’t even lie down and the more tired she got, the more hysterical she got leading to her just sat there crying really loudly while me and Dad2BabyInsomniac looked at her in shock wondering what the hell to do.
Luckily Daddy came to the rescue and took over because I was so tired. He tried to take her back to bed, he brushed her teeth again, read her three stories again and kissed Upsy Daisy again, basically doing anything she asked him to but when it came to leaving her she decided she wanted to go downstairs and wouldn’t even lie down in her bed.
So then he took her downstairs and let her play for half an hour.
When he came back up and tried to put her in bed again she went even more mad than before but we had no choice but to try and get her to sleep as it was 2am so I told him to just sit next to her bed and shush her without talking.
This led to her standing up shouting at the top of her voice ’MUMMY’, ‘DADDY’, ‘ONE MORE CUDDLE’, ‘I NEED A CUDDLE’ for 30 minutes before finally giving in and going to sleep. Of course when she was calling me and asking for a cuddle all I wanted to do was go and pick her up but that would have led to her not going to sleep at all so it had to be done.
I really hope it was a one off though!
What a bloody nightmare!
We had 8 months of v poor sleep due to reflux so I sympathise. Now have a pretty good sleeper but still have the odd bad night – normally due to illness or teeth but sometimes it is totally random! I’m sure this will be a one off fingers crossed x
It takes forever to break a habit like not sleeping and only one night for them to pick up a new one.
Assuming it was something she ate or some random thing – what you must do is treat tonight as usual. If she starts wanting a cuddle again, do what you did when you sat alongside her all that time ago. As if you are starting again – although I doubt it will take as long. Good luck
The Moiderer recently posted..Poo-gate
Thank you, you are so right. I just can’t believe after a year we can have such a bad night. She doesn’t normally nap in the day anymore but as she was so tired I just put her down and she went mad again, screaming my name but I left her and after five minutes she seems to have stopped. It’s hard because it’s so out of character but I know that if I get into bad habits again it won’t be long before I have a toddler insomniac! x
Jessica Amey recently posted..My Week That Was #35
Oh my god, 4 hours!! Hope she has a better night tonight. I remember those early nights very week, I think it’s now ingrained into my memory. Z now wakes once a night for about a minute about 5am and ends up in our bed then but sleeps through other than that. He still gets cuddled to sleep but it’s such a massive difference from when he used to wake every hour and a half for a feed. I think I looked like a zombie for the first year!
Notmyyearoff recently posted..Being Domesticated
I’m no sleep expert, but I think toddlers and all children do go through phases with their sleep. F has generally been quite consistent with her sleep since a baby. She’ll regularly sleep up to 15 hours a night – in fact, at one point she was sleeping so much she had to have blood tests to check nothing was wrong with her! But the last couple of weeks she’s been waking up, being a pain about going to bed and generally making us all very tired. I think when they get to a certain age they start having nightmares and dreaming, which can scare them. And this can sometimes put them off going to bed – even if they’re exhausted. And then the more over-tired they get the harder it is for them to wind down and sleep. That’s what I’m putting F’s recent bout of wakefulness down to anyway! x
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