Hysterical mid-night wakings :-( (nursaholic sequel)

seeker

Tue, Oct 11 2011, 12:02 am

HEEELLLLLP! You might remember my previous posts from the infant section about my nursaholic who won't go to sleep. That never really resolved perfectly but we reached a livable equilibrium that involved a combination of nursing and cosleeping and fathering and crying. Whatever. At least we all get some sleep. We've lived to almost 11 months old now.

Anyway, this isn't such a recent development but now that the rest has all but fallen into place, there's one major problem remaining. The baby will go to sleep (with a ritual that involves holding her until she falls asleep, but we can live with that now that we know sleep will come within minutes, not hours) and allow us to transfer her to the crib. She will sleep in the crib for varying amounts of time, sometimes up to the whole night. BUT, when she does wake up in middle of the night, she is totally hysterical and inconsolable except by nursing. No matter how recently and how much she previously nursed. Sometimes she goes a whole night with nothing (rarely), sometimes she's up every hour (also, BH, rarely) but usually she wakes like this a couple of times. After I nurse her down I can usually transfer her back to the crib peacefully. If the transfer is unsuccessful we're back at square one, with her begging to nurse from my breast which she JUST emptied. She DEFINITELY doesn't need this for any nutritional or fluid need, she eats plenty during the day. But NOTHING else will comfort her when she wakes in middle of the night. No amount of holding, cuddling, singing, toy, doll, blanket, father, mother... crying it out DOES NOT WORK at this point, she doesn't stop, just gets more and more hysterical. WE TRIED. She doesn't need to be nursed to fall asleep in the first place, only once she wakes up.

So, I'm happy to have her falling asleep with a routine that doesn't involve nursing and I'm even happier to have her sleeping out of my bed most of the night. But on nights when she does a lot of this waking I don't sleep well at all and am a wreck for the next two days at least. And she almost always does this at least once or twice. I am not good at getting up for a baby in middle of the night and falling back asleep! It's not the way my body works Sad

seeker

Tue, Oct 11 2011, 10:35 am

Yeah when she was nursing to sleep all the time I didn't ask questions. But this is something different. She wakes up so hysterical, like in a panic. Goes in one instant from sound asleep to sitting up screaming and desperate to nurse. Sometimes she barely needs to reach my breast before she's already falling asleep again, but she won't calm down without it. It's scary to see her so hysterical and not know why. 11 months is too young for night terrors, no?

Last night she did this twice within the first couple of hours of sleep, and then slept almost until morning. I'm not sure what time she woke up again because I sort of took her in my sleep and fell asleep still holding her. She doesn't wake up as often when she sleeps with me but I'm afraid to let her do that anymore because she climbed out of bed and hurt herself once. And I don't sleep well with her, except that same once when I was just so exhausted I couldn't stay conscious anymore. Not a good matzav.

shanie5

Tue, Oct 11 2011, 8:16 pm

My dd was doing this recently. Well, waking up a lot at night, and wanting to nurse or be held. Last night she slept so badly, and I was so tired, that I ended up letting my older children take care of her. At 2-3 in the morning! Or maybe it was 4-5, I have no idea. I took her to the dr. today as the behavior was too much for me. And sure enough, she has a nasty ear infection. Have you had her checked by the dr?

seeker

Tue, Oct 11 2011, 10:03 pm

We were at the dr last week due to other ear infection symptoms but her ears were clear, BH. And this has been going on since before that. She's always been a pretty horrid sleeper in general. She is getting over a bad cold now, but I'm more inclined to call this poor sleeping habits.

Mummiedearest, I've heard that eitza but it has never worked for us. Sigh. She seems worse when she can smell/hear/see me because then she REALLY wants to nurse and takes it more personally if I refuse.

gp2.0

Tue, Oct 11 2011, 10:18 pm

My DD does this and believe it or not she is thirsty!

But because she's 18 months I can communicate with her, ask her if she wants a drink and I offer her water either in a cup or in a bottle, which she happily grabs and drinks. Once she drinks she usually drops back off to sleep on her own. She does this once or twice in the beginning of the evening and then sleeps till morning.

A different concept: I cosleep and I am DDs 'comfort object.' Perhaps you are simply DDs comfort object and if so you have my sympathy. Sometimes she'll fall asleep cuddling a bottle but usually just touching my hand or having my arm under her head/over her waist is enough to soothe her but sometimes only nursing will do! And when she was 11 months old, definitely only nursing comforted her. So maybe try attaching her to a different object...like hold a soft toy with you when you nurse and let her play with it and associate it with being conforted. It didn't work for me but it may work for you...

seeker

Wed, Oct 12 2011, 12:31 am

mummiedearest - No strict nursing schedule but we have fallen into a predictable pattern... BESIDES for the night/sleep shtick. I was not very persistent about sleep training because I could see from the beginning that it was not going to work for us, but I have tried letting her cry for various lengths of time to see if she would ever resettle or just run out of steam and she NEVER does. (Actually, not never. ONCE, several months ago, when I was so desperate that I just had to leave her and take a time-out for myself and there was no one else to rescue her, she eventually fell asleep SITTING UP. Stubborn creature. She was VERY exhausted at the time.) I have tried making DH the only parent on call but he gives up because she is just totally inconsolable. He gives it a good faith effort for a nice amount of time but after listening to the screams from a distance I always wind up with a very angry baby dumped on me Sad

Weaning - she already gets most of her food from Food. She's young and I was very gung-ho about nursing, I actually like it when it's within reason, but I guess if it comes to that I might have to go cold turkey Sad

gp2.0 she is NOT thirsty most of the time. Maybe once or twice but it's hard to tell without giving in. Most of the time she doesn't even drink, only sucks. I am definitely her comfort object and SICK OF PLAYING HUMAN PACIFIER. I tried transitional objects and she is just totally uninterested Sad