Question:
I have a 27-month-old son. He used to go to sleep at night quite easily.
About 4 months ago, we noticed that he would wake up once or twice in the
middle of the night and cry. Aggravating, but not really a big deal, since we
could give him a bottle or a sippy cup of juice and he would be asleep again in
no time.
Well, the past couple of weeks this "non-standard" sleep pattern has been
GREATLY magnified. He has *never* been what you would call a good sleeper
(nights where he sleeps all the way through have been rare ever since he was
about a year and a half old), but now when he goes to bed, he sleeps for maybe
an hour or so and then he wakes up and cries, quickly followed by
****SCREAMS**** for us to come to him. I'm not talking about your average
crying or sobbing, I'm talking about actual hysterical screaming and thrashing
around.
When we go in there to see what the matter is, he always wants to leave the
room with us. We can stay in there with him OR he can leave the room with us,
but we CANNOT leave the room without him. He simply doesn't seem to want to go
to sleep anymore, and he doesn't want to stay in his room, and it's really
driving us both completely crazy. It is starting to affect our marriage, not
to mention our health.
Answer:
When he wakes up, does he respond to you? I wonder if he's having night
terrors. What does his doctor say? Or plain nightmares, which sounds
more likely. You might want to discuss this with a child psychiatrist or
psychologist- or a sleep specialist but that wouldn't be my first choice
in this case.
children who do not sleep well must feel miserable and
certainly make those who care for them miserable!
have you seen a doctor about this yet? there could be any number of problems
that are medically based and you need to sort those out before you start
looking at other approaches
I saw a show on ABC last night about this! This toddler started having
night terrors and it making for a miserable night. They gave him a sleep study and
found out he had sleep apnea. The first thing they did was remove his tonsils and
adenoids.
If I'm not mistaken, that fixed it without the need for CPAP. But the
show was called "Sleep: How to get the best rest of your life." You can also check out
this site:
http://toddlerstoday.com/resources/articles/toddlerterror.htm
But I suggest you ask your pediatrician about this and ask about sleep
apnea and have his
tonsils looked at.
The only thing that I ever used that worked with my own daughter when she
was a baby was a wind up alarm clock. Putting the clock into her crib with
her, well, the ticking sound of the clock was sort of soothing and caused
her to fall asleep to it. I don't know if this works for everyone, but it
worked for me many years ago.
