Worn out by constant crying at night

Kashkai

Hi all,

My son (a twin - now nine months old) is pushing my wife and I closer to insanity day by day, or more correctly, night by night. The problem is that he refuses to sleep a full night.

Now I'm not a first time dad, I have a daughter now 6, who was sleeping through the night from when she was 6 weeks. My other daughter (i.e. my son's twin) generally sleeps through the night with the odd exception. However, nothing we've tried will get my son to sleep for more than three hours in a row. If anything, he's getting worse as the weeks go by. The night before last, he was screaming every hour on the hour and as it was taking 20 - 30 minutes to get him back to sleep, we were only getting a half hours sleep here and there. I'm barely able to function in the office and my normally calm and laid back wife is fraying around the edges.

While I know he's teething at the moment, this isn't the entire cause of his bouts of screaming. The fact is that he wants a bottle every time he wakes up. When we deny him this, he screams. We've given him water but he soon copped on to this and now rejects it as soon as he realises its not milk.

I can't stand to leave him screaming in the hope he'll go to sleep again as I think its cruel and he also wakes up my other kids. However, we did try to leave him to settle on his own once but he screamed for an hour and a half before we relented.

He's also a bad sleeper during the day and never sleeps for more than 20 - 30 minutes at a stretch. His twin will sleep at least for an hour.

Its getting ridiculous at this stage and if we can't get him to start sleeping soon, I'll be posting an advert for "Little boy for sale, good set of lungs":D

PS, only kidding about the ad - he's still the best little boy in the world:)

littlebug

Been there done that, been that fraying at the edges wife! That said, having been there, with my first, I really don't have much advice for you. I'm good eh? We read all the books, talked to everyone, tried everything and at the end of the day she just eventually grew out of it. It didn't happen overnight and in fact we still see her more at night (she's 4 1/2 now) than we do of her nearly 2 year old brother. She was different than yours in that she didn't want a bottle. In fact I would happily have given her a bottle if it meant she would go to sleep. She just woke frequently and cried for no known reason. She did suffer from reflux so putting infant gaviscon in her bottle did help a bit. However I presume at 9 months you would know by now if that was the problem. Yes it would get very bad when she was teething but would then revert to bad afterwards. Tried the sleep training thing but eventually figured out that she would just cry forever....:( . Seriously I think me and my husband spent very few full nights sleeping in the same room for well over a year. That was the only way for at least one of us to get some reasonable sleep. We took it in turns to be on night duty. I think that was the only way to stay sane.

How's your little lad by day. My girl screamed for a lot of the day too. She was in my arms constantly til she was about 14 months! Oh the memories... actually most of it is a blur. I do have a book called "The high needs baby book" by William Sears which didn't have any magical answers but it was a reassurance that I wasn't doing anything wrong and I wasn't the only person in the world with a baby like that! I'd be happy to stick it in the post to you if you want... i'm all done with babies here:D

Is your wife at home all day with the kids? Half an hour to herself with a cup of tea when you get home in the evenings might be a good idea;) Helps with those fraying edges.


P

PS Craniosacral therapy as suggested by kmick below is worth a shot. Worked wonders for my 2nd baby.

eimearnll

just wondering is your baby a good eater he could be hungry,or what i used to do was leave a bottle in the cot and they just picked it up and went back to sleep, also 1 toy that they like,when they wake and see the toy they play a bit and fall back asleep,sounds a bit easy i know but thank god it worked for me.

kmick

Have a look at the Castlewood Clinic in Rathmines - they have a therapist there who does child craniosacral work. Because children cannot communicate it is difficult to know what is wrong with them. Sometimes it is physical and sometimes emotional. If it is physical then she may be able to help. Pm me for number

embee

I'd second what kmick has said - I post regularly on http://www.magicmum.com and some of the Mammies there have had problems similar to yours. In a lot of cases, they've brought their little one to get cranial osteopathy done and it has worked wonders. The thinking behind it is that, when a baby is passing through the birth canal (or even during a c-section, where a baby is usually pulled out headfirst by the doctor), the bones in a babys skull are displaced ever so slightly. In most babies, the bones will settle back into the correct place within a few weeks, but in some, they may settle in the wrong way (even by a couple of millimetres) and cause tension headaches, crankiness and problems sleeping. Try the osteopathy - it won't hurt your son and you could find it to be the solution to all your problems!

Trinity

My son had to be fed every 2 hours.

Does he throw up much during the day? I tried lots of differnent formulas for him i knew something wasnt quite right.

he was one before they would listen to me and after running tests they discovered he was lactose intolerant.

i changed him to lactose free formula and we never looked back

however i would get him checked out. Mine sucked a soother and slept with me. But i was obviously feeding him the wrong food so he was constantly windy and not satisfied.

deisemum

If my second child was my first born he'd have been an only child.

I never had a problem putting him down and he'd sleep for about 2 hours then wake every hour until he was 15 months. It didn't help that I had a toddler and hubby worked away from home during the week. Some nights I didn't even go to bed. My sleep pattern has never recovered and he's 9 in a few weeks.

When he was 15 months old I got Toddler Taming by Dr Christopher Green and within a couple of nights he was suddenly sleeping 5 - 6 hours. I tried his controlled crying technique and if you stick to it, it actually works.

Rudolph Claus

Smoother the wee brats. Kids :rolleyes: You could have had twin subarus out in the drive.

embee

Nuttzy wrote:

Smoother the wee brats. Kids :rolleyes: You could have had twin subarus out in the drive.

Very droll.:rolleyes:

Nevyn

very banned.

Kashkai

kmick wrote:

Have a look at the Castlewood Clinic in Rathmines - they have a therapist there who does child craniosacral work. Because children cannot communicate it is difficult to know what is wrong with them. Sometimes it is physical and sometimes emotional. If it is physical then she may be able to help. Pm me for number

My son was born by c-section and yes his skull at the back of his head doesn't look or feel quite right.

The c-section was botched in my non medical opinion. The doctor performing the op was a trainee or whatever you call them and screwed up. Firstly, she cut through a blood vessel that sent a shower of blood over my wife's face and my arm. Then my wife's blood pressure plummeted and it was me who had to point this out to the head nurse present as they where all suddenly concerned with what was happening in the c-section area. I was then bundled out of the room and the last thing I saw was my son being literally yanked out of the womb. While waiting for an hour outside, I overheard two doctors talking about how the trainee doctor screwed up and cut through a blood vessel and the placenta. When I approached them and said I was the father, they clammed up and asked me to leave the delivery suite. When I got annoyed at this, they tried to placate me and said they'd give me a thorough report of what went on. I'm still waiting.

In the end I was literally left holding the babies for four hours while no one knew what had happened to my wife. It was a classic case of mixed emotions - the joy of holding my newborn daughter and son while on the other hand, I was sick with worry for my wife. Finally, I was brought with the twins to a recovery room where I found my wife doped up to the eyeballs on morphine with numerous drips hanging out of her. She was so far gone that she barely registered the fact that our babies were in my arms. The next day when she had recovered a little, I told her what had happened and that we should lodge a complaint about the botched procedure. However, she didn't want to pursue the matter and there it dropped.

However, after reading some of the comments above, I wonder if my son's skull is slightly deformed and if it is causing him pain. He never wnts to sleep on his back and while he's a normally happy, cheerful little guy during the day, getting him to lie down to sleep is a nightmare. I'll discuss this with my wife and see if we should have him properly examined to see if his skull is ok.

Nevyn

I am so sorry to hear that what should have been a wonderful if exhausting time for you all went so horridly.

Do check that everything is physically well with your child, sometimes as new/fristtimer parents you really have to push the dr to explain it is not just you over reacting.

littlebug

God that sounds horrific for you both. I agree that you should get him checked out given the circumstances of his birth, the fact that you think his skull feels wrong and the problems you are having with him at night. Chances are that if he is fine by day there is nothing seriously wrong but you should get him checked regardless. I would also go to a craniosacral therapist.

Like Deisemum above I did resort to sleep training with my 2nd baby (it would never have worked with my first!) Worth a try when you get to the point of tearing your hair out. I set limits with it... no more than an hour crying max...and if there was no improvement in 3 nights I would stop. By night 3 he fell straight asleep and stayed asleep for 11 hours. Right as rain since then. An hour crying sounds awful but I had got to the stage where it was easier than 2 hours of endless feeding, rocking, pacing the floor, singing, putting him down for it to start all over again in an hour... and maybe twice more during the night.

Good luck!

Kashkai

Thanks for the replies folks.

I'll try the controlled crying routine for a few nights but its difficult when my son's crying wakes his twin up.

Also for peace of mind, I'll bring him to the doctor to have his head looked at just in case.

Its a comfort knowing that when I'm pacing the floor at 4 am, I'm not the only one. Still I'm sure not one of us would choose to be without our kids even with all the sleepless nights.

magnumlady

I feel so sorry for you. Had the same with my son. Everytime I laid him down he screamed. I was told I was a first time mother and to go home and get on with it.
It turned out in the end that he had glue ear and the pressure was making him scream.
So I would try and get him seen by a consultant, just incase.
If it helps, it does get better!

kelle

Hi, Prosperous Dave. i'm so sorry to read about the horrible experience at your twins birth - thank God everybody was okay in the end, no thanks to that doctor. I'm nervous now as I'm having an elective Caesarean in 8 weeks time, but the same consultant who did my last 2 will be doing it again and I have every confidence in him.
We had the same experience as you with our firstborn. He woke up nearly every hour, we'd have to feed him and it would take 30 minutes to get him back to sleep. We were both working fulltime (plus i was doing lots of 24 hour call), I was like a zombie and our nerves were frazzled - I even contemplated suicide as I felt having undisturbed sleep forevermore sounded SO appealing! Do you want to know how we solved the problem? (Thing is, we encountered so much criticism for it but these people didn't go through what we were going through so it was unfair of them to comment!)
We started letting him sleep with us! Result - we started getting full night's sleep. Of course, it kind of backfired on us as we didn't get him out of our bed till he was nearly 3. But it was so worth it at the time.
Actually, I was advised to go to a Craniosacral therapist - it might be no harm for you to try.
I really hope you get to the bottom of this - my heart really goes out to you.

luckat

Eee, sorry to hear about this.

Just a thought - could he be thirsty, rather than hungry? Sometimes a thirsty kid will cry and cry and then only drink part of a bottle, which will make him thirstier, but he's so full he can't take more to alleviate his thirst...

One suggestion - if you adults can take naps during the day, it'll be a lot easier to deal with being woken at night. If each adult goes to bed, and to sleep, for an hour after coming home, things will be much, much easier, if your schedule makes this possible.

frany

My son slept very good when he was in 9months old but the sleeping time has changed after visiting Korea which my parents are in.
So I tried to change this sleeping time to Irish night time. Fortunately,
his teeth was annoying him, so I fed "Teedex" before going to sleep in the evening time.

But he woke up once evey night for "bottle". So I gave him a warm water only,
he started to scream as soon as he noticed it was not a milk bottle.
I and my husband couldn't endure the night time because he should go to work everyday.

I didn't know why but I got an answer. He started to refuse that I fed him.
He wanted to feed himself (the babyfood) but you know baby spits more than eats.
And that was why he woke up over and over during the night.
Now he eats more himself than when I feed hm.
I didn't slept well for a few months with this terrible battle.

Now my son goes to sleep at 8pm and wakes up at 6am.
I understand how you feel. Hope my experince will help you.:)

Nevyn

Have you tried spliting up the twins until you have the sleep pattern established.
Have one parent stay with the sleeping twin and the other try the controlled crying routine. That way the other twin won't wake and the parents can take it in shifts.

luckat

Also - a small point, but this may help: make up a chart covering the 24 hours, and note when the baby/babies wake and go back to sleep.

Even though your sleep is being interrupted, it may be less than you think, and the dread may be tiring you worse than the fact of what's happening. If you see, for instance, that the babby wakes twice a night some nights and once a night others, you may be less freaked out, and so sleep better.

Is the hungry or thirsty baby on solids, by the way? Sometimes a baby can be ready to mill into some solid food and bottles just aren't doing it. If it's thirst rather than hunger, try him on a bottle with boiled-and-cooled water.

Is he too hot or cold: you know how horrible it is to wake shivering, or conversely to wake boiling...

Does he have nappy rash - is he getting a sore bottom from a wet nappy? (Someone I know had two babies with terrible nappy rash; on the third baby, a new doctor said "Ah, seen this before: allergic to zinc" and when she searched out a bottom cream that didn't contain zinc, she had a contented baby.)

Nine months is a good idea to start teaching the baby some signs, for "sore", "cold", "hot", "hungry", "thirsty", "funny" and so on. Things calm down a lot when the baby can tell you what's wrong. There's a site about it here: http://www.signingbaby.com

darkflower

luckat wrote:

Also - a small point, but this may help: make up a chart covering the 24 hours, and note when the baby/babies wake and go back to sleep.

Even though your sleep is being interrupted, it may be less than you think, and the dread may be tiring you worse than the fact of what's happening. If you see, for instance, that the babby wakes twice a night some nights and once a night others, you may be less freaked out, and so sleep better.

Is the hungry or thirsty baby on solids, by the way? Sometimes a baby can be ready to mill into some solid food and bottles just aren't doing it. If it's thirst rather than hunger, try him on a bottle with boiled-and-cooled water.

Is he too hot or cold: you know how horrible it is to wake shivering, or conversely to wake boiling...

Does he have nappy rash - is he getting a sore bottom from a wet nappy? (Someone I know had two babies with terrible nappy rash; on the third baby, a new doctor said "Ah, seen this before: allergic to zinc" and when she searched out a bottom cream that didn't contain zinc, she had a contented baby.)

Nine months is a good idea to start teaching the baby some signs, for "sore", "cold", "hot", "hungry", "thirsty", "funny" and so on. Things calm down a lot when the baby can tell you what's wrong. There's a site about it here: http://www.signingbaby.com

thanks a lot for this info..i'm pretty sure everyone who needs help would be glad of reading your advises. i'l do with my coming baby pretty soon!:D

kelle

darkflower wrote:

thanks a lot for this info..i'm pretty sure everyone who needs help would be glad of reading your advises. i'l do with my coming baby pretty soon!:D

Congratulations, Wallflower. When are you due? I'm due on Nov.17th

Kashkai

I know it can appear to a lot of people that parents of infants may "exaggerate" the number of times they have been up at night with their babies. However, in our case, it has now been proven - ask my mother. She babysat for us Saturday evening while my wife and I went out for dinner (anniversary). We were back by 11.30pm and got to sleep by 4.00am. In the interim, we were trying to put the twins asleep while my son in particular wanted to play. My mother couldn't believe how unsettled the twins were especially as she has other grandchildren of the same age who sleep for 10 - 12 hours a night (we had our own family babyboom a year ago - 4 new grandkids in 4 months!!).

The other annoying thing is that the twins don't sleep much during the daytime either, so no chance to get a nap there either. I managed to put my daughter down to bed yesterday at 3.30 and when I saw my son nodding off at 4.00, I also put him down. Ten minutes later he was yelling and this woke his twin up. I can't win!!!!:eek:

As for splitting the twins up, we don't have the room at the moment. We bought a small 2 bed bungalow 2 years ago so we could have a house for the three of us (wife, oldest daughter and myself) in the countryside. Shortly after we moved from our large 4 bed house, we found out that my wife was pregnant which was a surprise as we had been trying for the previous five years and nothing had happened. If we had stayed put in the old house, we would have had loads of room for us all. Funny how life enjoys a laugh at your expense!!! We are currently extending the bungalow to have enough room for us all but in the meantime, the twins are in the same room as my wife and I. The only alternative would be one of us and one of the babies sleeping in the sitting room which neither of us favours.

I'm amazed either of us can keep going at the moment as we are both exhausted. I manage to get some sleep on the train to and from work and my wife goes for a nap when I get home but these are not sufficient to keep us functioning as normal human beings. We only hope that the day will come when some little sleep switch will flick on in our twin's brains and finally let us get to sleep.

I suppose it could be worse - we could have triplets!!!!

luckat

Heavens, no, I wasn't suggesting you were exaggerating - not in the least.

But sometimes charting things can actually give you a better angle on them.

For instance, if you find out that the baby always wakes at 4.45, just five hours after his last feed, it might give you a clue.

And if you find that he wakes on a regular schedule, it may help you to sleep more deeply in between his regular wake times, because you won't be half-conscious the whole time, waiting for him to wake. If you know he's likely to wake two hours from now, you can drop into a deeper sleep and then your body will come up to the surface around the time he's scheduled to wake.

kelle

Any changes in the last couple of nights, ProsperousDave?

Kashkai

kelle wrote:

Any changes in the last couple of nights, ProsperousDave?

Hi Kelle,

Things have gotten a lot worse - we went to bed last night at 11.00pm and our son had us awake at 2.00am. Our daughter chimed in at 2.30 and then he was off again at 3.00 and didn't settle until 5.45am, just before my alarm went off at 6.00.

Needless to say, I'm like a zombie today with just 3 hours sleep last night to add to the 4 I got the night before last.

There was a time I could party all night and still do a day's work but those times are long gone and I'd give anything for 8 hours continuous sleep.

A girl I work with was telling me this morning that her 8 month old went to bed at 8.30pm last night and woke up at 6.00 this morning, about 2 hours before she normally does. She couldn't understand why I had zero sympathy for the fact that she was woken up at 6am instead of her normal 8am start.:rolleyes:

Nevyn

Do you have a family member some one how can come and give you a nights sleep even once a week ?

luckat

Omigod, it's like something from the H-Blocks!

Prosperous, do you have aunties or grandmas available? If it was at all possible for one of you to sleep "at home" (in your parents' places) once a week, it would certainly help.

When the babba wakes, is he greeting and miserable, or is does he seem in pain? You describe him as "screaming at the top of his lungs", which suggests great distress.

This may sound bizarre - or even unsafe, given your own state of sleeplessness - but have you thought of getting up and bringing him for a drive (do you have a car) when he's shrieking?

If he's teething, and really in horrible pain, have you tried rubbing a little whiskey on his gums? Not medical advice, I'm not a doc - ask your doctor - but it sometimes works. (And drink a little glass yourself too.)

He may be doing something like I do myself when in pain: if I've a toothache I'm liable to clench my teeth against the pain, making it (naturally) much worse! If there's any way that you can soothe him and calm him, the pain may lessen.

The one good thing about teething is that it does end, though I've always imagined that when the scientists finally get it together to make us able to grow new teeth someone will ring up the managing director of a large firm, to be told quietly, "Maybe ring Mr Mulqueen tomorrow; he's terrible cranky today - he's teething."

Kashkai

Morning folks.

Just by way of reply to the posts above, its not possible for us to get help from our extended families because my wife's family is in Mayo (we live in Kildare) and they all have small kids themselves. My wife's mother died a few years back so one less granny to help out.

On my side, my family live 30 miles away from us on the north side of Dublin. My brothers (I've no sisters) also have kids including babies of 3 and 6 months of age. My own mother works so that granny is ruled out.

Neither my wife or I are close to aunts so there goes the last port of call for potential babysitters.

Even if someone was brave enough to take on our two babies for a night, I wouldn't feel comfortable about it as it is hectic at night in our place and its asking one hell of a favour for someone to take over the childminding for the night. As for going back to the parent's house for a nights rest, I wouldn't contemplate leaving my wife to look after the kids single handedly (even though she is well capable) as I'd just feel totally selfish.

Thanks anyway for the advice guys but I guess we'll just have to keep at it in the hope that they calm down at some point.

robindch

> Craniosacral therapy as suggested by kmick below is worth a shot.

Folks, be wary of wonder claims for Craniosacral Therapy -- it's nothing more than a skull massage and the many of the people who offer it have little or no medical training. Here's a useful page on it:

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cranial.html

littlebug

this probably won't be a terribly popular reply but I've been in that awful place that you are in just now.

One word.... dozol. Not every night but desperate times etc etc.

P