[Gabri]

Our previously fantastic sleeper now wakes up every hour and screams for us. We get up with him, comfort him, get him back to sleep, and then repeat the whole thing when he is back up an hour later. We're not sure if the waking is due to illness (we held him all night through RSV back in Feb... and then an ear infection in early March) or if it's just his age (20 months). Either way, we're all tired.

We're not going to do cry-it-out. We're debating continuing the up-every-hour-get-him-resettled-in-his-bed or cosleeping. He moves around A LOT and has already crawled off the foot-end of our bed in his sleep once (that ended the co-sleeping) shortly after he came home. Also, we have a 5 yo who is jumps into our bed about 2am, so space is an issue. I looked at arm's reach, but it only goes up to 30lbs. (He's 28lbs now.)

Any ideas? Anyone else have a previous great sleeper who started waking up all the time at about the same age? What did you do?

[Saya]

Hi Gabri,

I actually posted about this same issue with our 23 month old last week, and I wanted to point you to that thread, which had a lot of good advice:

Sleep question - 2-year-old, home over a year (long, sorry)

I have to say that Anabel seems to have returned to her good sleep habits this week - woohoo! I know and understand you don't want to cry it out, so this might not work for you. In our case we realized that the getting up with her every hour was just making things worse. So we didn't respond one night and she cried (more just whimpered) for about 10 minutes and went back to sleep. A couple more times she woke up and didn't cry at all, just called out for us and then fell asleep again. And it's been basically back to normal since then. Fingers crossed it will remain OK . . .

Good luck to you!

[Gabri]

We would do wimper-it-out, but he really screams almost immediately upon waking. We thought he was having gas pains or perhaps his ear infection was back (it's that kind of pain scream), but he calms down right away when we pick him up (which he doesn't do when he's in pain).

Thanks--I will go read that thread!

[hesabananasdh]

A couple of thoughts, based only on my experience. First, I'd take him to the MD just to rule out any medical issues - the reason is that our 2 yr old DS, who just had tubes put in after 4 or 5 really bad double ear infections, never presented with any symptoms of his ear infections other than frequent waking up at night. No fevers, no bad moods when awake, nothing. We'd bring him downstairs, settle him in, put him back in the crib, and then an hour later, we' be up again. Once this pattern was established we knew what was going on, but the first couple of times (right around when he was starting to teeth), we were confused because (and I'm being honest) he was/is the best sleeper in the world. Put him in the crib, shut the door, and unless his big brother wakes him up, he's out for a solid 10 hours.

Secondly, he could be starting to dream and it's freaking him out. 2 yr. old DS was screaming his head off last night, standing in his crib, while still asleep. It took me 5-10 minutes just to get him to fully wake up and as soon as he did, he settled right in and slept the rest of the night. It was around this time that our 4 yr. old DS started dreaming, too (I think), and I remember how hard it was for him.
Hope this helps.

[Saya]

I also wanted to add that I think one of the issues with Anabel is it turned out she was teething, so we gave her some Motrin at bedtime for a couple of nights and I think that helped some as well.

[GuatabeeAMum]

I agree with seeing the md to rule out a physical problem....our dd always acts this way when having an ear infection. Good luck
!

[Gabri]

Thanks! He's actually finishing a round of antibiotics for an ear infection (that didn't have any symptoms) so we have thought that maybe it's not cleared up. We did the Motrin thing, too, in case the ear was bugging him.

I think you might be on to something with the dreams. In our arms he's way more fidgety than he used to be. I've also noticed that he startles more easily during the day when the phone rings or dogs bark.