sleeping trouble
valen turned six months on saturday. it feels like he has taken a turn for the better overnight. the past few days he hasnt been as cranky in the evening and that is wonderful! but the only problem still is that he doesnt go to sleep very well at night. he wants us to hold him, and even then once he is asleep he still wakes up and cries. it is frustrating. we keep thinking we wont go in there, but he doesnt calm down. we have let him cry for a long long time before and he still didnt calm down until we ended up just feeding him to shut him up. and the only times he is waking up at night after he finally is asleep is when his is pee soaked. is this a boy issue or what? oh my goodness! sometimes the diaper isnt even full but he is drenched. so i think maybe his aim has something to do with it, plus he sleeps on hiis tummy. that is also very frustrating. so then we have to try all over again to get him back to sleep after we clean him off. this happens once or more a night. and if we end up feeding him to calm him down it just causes the same thing to happen again. a few hours later he is pee soaked again. maybe if he was sleeping in a crib that is bigger than a pack n play to give him a little more room to move around at night. he moves a lot. also, lowering him into the pack n play to sleep might be bothering him. he goes down for naps so great during the day in dahlias crib. i just dont understand why night time makes him flip out. maybe we should have the lights on when we lay him down so he thinks it is daytime. hmmm, any suggestions! or wisdom!!??
gbodeutsch on Dec 2, 2007 1:41pm
near Wauna, WA
nessie on Dec 2, 2007 1:41pm
:-) I don't know what you did to get Dahlia to sleep through the night, but once I did get Aloria to do it (finally!) ...we would let her cry for five or ten minutes, then go in and soother her by touching her or whispering, then after a while (even if she was still crying a little...or a lot), I 'd leave for another ten minutes, then go back and do the same thing. Basically, just letting her know that I would always be there to comfort her, but once she was in bed, she would not be getting out of bed again (unless she peed all over herself of course...or something like that). Eventually she got the message. That...and she was thirsty a lot of times, so I put a sippy cup of water in bed with her, so she could drink it herself instead of waking me up. ...and when Aloria peed out her diaper, I just uped the size and that usually took care of it...but she's not a boy, so I don't know if that would work the same. She doesn't have to aim :-)
Emily on Dec 2, 2007 1:41pm
I totally think the pee thing is a boy thing. Oh my word, it's been the BIGGEST frustration for me to have him wake up in the middle of the night soaked. I've found that bigger diapers work better (I have him in size 4 now). I've also found that the type of diapers make a big difference, too. I can't use any store brand, he goes straight through the things. He wakes up pretty much every morning soaked. He's also started sleeping on his tummy and I don't think that that helps his leakage problem :-) I echo was Venessa said about once he's in bed, leave him there. I've had to do that Maddox and it's made the world of difference. It takes a couple of not-so-fun nights, but then they learn. When we go away he usually regresses, but then one night of crying off and on and he's all back to his normal sleepy self.
rainbow on Dec 2, 2007 1:41pm
I hate the pee soaked episodes. It's so sad! I agree with both Nessie and Emily. That's what we did with Vinnie and she's been sleeping 12 hours since she was 12 weeks old... feeding and sleeping schedules made having a baby so much easier. Also, i've noticed that store brand diapers don't do as good of a job as brand names. We even got some "overnight" diapers for vinnie for a while there when she was waking up soaked every morning... they were way worth the extra money. We stopped giving her liquids after like 6 and that fixed the problem, but Valen's too young for that... Maybe just give him a few ounces when he's hungry at night instead of letting him eat however much he wants would work.
Misty Throop on Dec 2, 2007 1:41pm
Hey...I went through the whole pee soaked thing too. I found that when I switched to Pampers I had no problems from then on. Just a suggestion. Hope all is well. You have such cuties!! Love, Misty
Cal Bodeutsch on Dec 2, 2007 1:41pm
It seems that everything about raising children is "Trial & Error." What works for one has the opposite effect on another. You are a great mother, so just hang in there. The next stage will be here soon enough with another set of challenges. Our parents didn't know it all and look at how we turned out. (Maybe that's not a comforting thought.)
Uncle Cal