Cries in the Night

[HeartRN]

For the last three or four nights, our previous "sleep through the night for 11-12 hours" child is awakening and crying for extended periods of time. What's your take on all of this? I am thinking primarily developmental...she's almost 17 month and she's started to put some words together that sound like sentences ...and the last time this happened it was right before she walked. Also, the doc says the Big Kahuna molars are coming in full force Do you think it will become totally habitual if I keep going in to her? When I do, I'm able to settle her in about 5-10 min and she sleeps through thereafter. This is esp. good if we have to get up at 6am and go to work. If I don't go to her (after allowing her to try to settle herself to no avail), she cries for one hour plus (like last night, until I finally went in because I couldn't take it). Any advice/input is welcome. Thanks!

Are you giving her any tylenol or advil before bed? That could help with those molars. My first did the same sort of thing before big developmental jumps like crawling, walking, and increases in vocabulary.

Good luck. That stuff is hard. It feels like illness, teething, and all that stuff comes in and messes up your hard work. If you got there before, you can do it again!

[SueC]

Yeah, I think I'd tend to go ahead and go in if she is calming down that quickly. You'll know in a week or two if it is becoming habitual versus being due to pain from teeth or something like that.

[mommax3]

I agree.....go ahead and go in if you are able to settle her that quickly. When she gets through this stage, I bet she will go right back to sleeping through.

Sally

Has your pediatrician said anything about it being related to separation anxiety? My guy started having what I would call night terrors around 12 months--we would hear him screaming hysterically (this would be a few hours after he went to sleep) but when we went to check on him, he was still asleep--but still crying. It was kinda scary, especially because it would take us about ten minutes to get him awake, and then about 5-10 more to get him calmed down and back to bed. The dr. said that between 12-18 months or so, they can have these little fits and that it's a symptom of separation anxiety. It doesn't hurt them and probably causes us more distress than them--my dr. said that if we could wait it out, then we can just let him cry and he'll eventually go to sleep again--but otherwise, we can go in, wake him up, get him calmed down and put him back to bed. I always go and get him, and we rock together in the rocking chair for about ten minutes until he feels ok enough to be tucked back in.

I'd imagine that we're close to having molar issues as well. Ethan's poor little gums are so swollen--it feels like he has an absess or something. He goes for his 15-month checkup tomorrow, so I'm going to have the doctor check it out.

And just for comic relief, I let Ethan climb up on my lap while I was working on the computer today at the breakfast bar and he got ahold of a leftover container of barbecue McNugget sauce--needless to say, we were both covered in barbecue sauce in a matter of moments...