Saturday, July 2, 2011

but mom, I'm not tired!!

Elliot has started fighting his sleep lately. Actually, fighting sleep doesn't really explain it. It all starts off fine... he has a nice big bowl of food and a relaxing bath, followed by a massage and a bottle. Well... as the bottle nears empty and his eyes grow heavy... that's when it all goes downhill. For some inexplicable reason, Elliot starts SCREAMING. We're talking Defcon 5, Help-Me-Mom-I'm-Dying, screaming on the top of his lungs. All the while, his eyes are little slits, with giant bags beneath them, and he can hardly even hold his own head up.
I just don't get it. I've tried everything- rocking him, singing to him, laying down next to him, even just laying him in his crib and seeing if he just needs some time by himself to compose himself. NOPE. Nothing helps.
It's almost as if he knows it's bedtime and just doesn't want to go to bed... but I'm pretty sure he's not old enough for that yet.
Thanks to all of this screaming, Elliot hasn't been getting to bed until 11 or sometimes even MIDNIGHT lately, and consequently hasn't been waking up until 10:00 or 10:30. His schedule is way off. Poor guy.

5 comments:

  1. We were having this same issue but it has slowly passed...
    We now lay him down awake (but tired) & he normally crys 20-30 mins. we go in every 5-10 minutes to try to soothe him.
    The past two nights he has went down with no crying at all--
    I have always had music playing--normally the christian radio station but yesterday I bought the fisher-price lullaby songs cd or something like that? && he just lays there and listens to it & falls asleep. It's amazing!! So maybe try some music or invest in one of the things that have images play on the ceiling???

    Hopefully this is just a phase or that you find a solution soon... that can be so exhausting.

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  2. oh lordy, what is going on with these boys?! caleb has been fighting sleep all week, not quite as bad as your little guy. He has some teeth coming through and he just wants to play! I gave in and gave him some ibuprofen, now he's snoozing, thank GOD!

    I hope you find a solution soon.

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  3. uh i just realized i left a comment under the mister's name, weird. sorry :-) it's really sabina

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  4. Hi Jess, I've been following your blog since just after Elliot was born, a friend of mine who is also on Top Baby Blogs posted a link on her blog to yours.

    I just wanted to say I know all about fighting sleep, my little guy did from about 3 months old! When he got to about 13months we spent a lot of time and effort to help him sleep. I blogged about what we did here. http://becspires.blogspot.com/2010/04/aston-learns-to-sleep.html

    Elliot is prob still a bit little for some of that stuff but it may be helpful to read. As well as the book I mention in the blog post "The No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley is an awesome book to read.

    I hope Elliot learns that sleep is fun soon :-)

    Bec

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  5. Try swaddling & vacuuming at the same time

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