I might have 5 but I'm struggling with this and need some help .......

[QueenEagle]

I should know what I'm doing but all my older children slept well from the ages of about 3-4 months so I have never experienced this. Well, I have actually with foster kids I looked after but they didn't tend to stay long enough for it to become a problem.

ds4 is 5 months old and generally a happy baby. Over the last 3 weeks or thereabouts, he has become very unsettled (teeth?) during the night. He regularly wakes at 3 - 3.30am and if I try to put him back in his cot he won't go back to sleep. I have got into the habit of putting him in his car seat by the side of my bed and rocking him to sleep which has worked but I don't want him to get too used to this as he will have grown out of it soon and then I'll be well stuck!

Last night I tried unsuccessfully to put him back in his cot but he cried so much even with the lullaby music on I brought him back down to my bed. He shares with ds3 who is 2 and really don't want to have him awake at 4am as well otherwise I'd perservere with letting ds4 cry it out a bit.

He slept fine cuddling up to me in bed with a dummy (which I have to physically hold in his mouth as it keeps popping out), but this is not really a suitable long term solution for me. (Him being in bed with me, I mean; don't mind him having the dummy).

Please give me some advice on what I can try now, I am not good when I don't get my sleep and this has been going on for long enough now to be making me really fatigued. I'm not really sure why he won't go back to sleep now - he used to until about 7.30am.

TIA to anyone who can suggest anything

[hermykne]

is he on solids?

[QueenEagle]

Yes he is and loves his food. Do you think he needs more?? He started early on solids and is now on two "meals" a day - mid morning he has porridge and about teatime he has a dinner. He still drinks about the same amount of milk as he always did and I'm giving him one when he wakes at 3am too.

He does have a bit of eczema on his face which I knowe aggravates him but I'm covering him in the cream and the steroid the GP gave him. He's also got a bit of a "green" nose but he's had that since he was about 7 weeks old but the HV reckons it's nowt to worry about.

[QueenEagle]

Awww, come on everybody - I'm sure you must have some ideas????????

[Lonelymum]

My ds3 hated going back to sleep at night and like you, I didn't like to leave him to cry as he might wake up the other children. I am afraid I used to let him sleep with me once he had woken up once at night (until he was about one year old). Dh either used to wait for him to go back to sleep and then put him back in his cot or he would go into another room for the night. Shock Horror! Everything I hate about parenting! However, I was knackered and couldn't be bothered to spend half the night trying to settle him.

Now if he wakes up, one of us just goes in to him and if it is me, I give him a quick cuddle and say "It is not time to wake up yet" and put him down and usually there is no problem, so all my earlier pandering to him doesn't seem to have had a bad effect.

What I have also found out though is that the older children don't seem to hear him when he cries even though he shares a room with ds2. So you could try leaving him for a bit maybe?

[hermykne]

queen eagle my ds ,breastfeed and started solids at 21wks,(eats consistently thru outthe day - loves food)
anyway he became very irratible at night for yonks, and then i finally clicked it was his intestine, and he was cramping at night because, i should have coped sooner, if i rubbed his tummy he settled but was awake an hour later or 1 1/2hrs, so he got prunes pureed on his porridge and there were some massive movements and no joke since then he sleeps thru from 7 / 7.30 til 6am.
plus prunes every day and moves twice

would that be it for yours?

[hermykne]

he roared thehouse down too at night and i did leave him as i was knackered, dd didnt wake amazingly.
and god did i feel guilty after i coped on.

[milward]

Could well be his teeth - can you feel anything in the gum? The first teeth can be the worst to come through.

[koalabear]

i'd go with the hunger theory, by what you say

perhaps increase solids, and also, quantity of milk feeds ?

i feed my DS until he physically turns his head away so i know he is full

[QueenEagle]

milward - my first suspicion was teeth as ds3 had his first at 4 months but can't see or feel anything in his gums yet. I have bought some calgel today anyway, might as well slap it on to see if it helps!

hermykne - I sometimes think he might have wind/cramps so might try the prunes idea - how do you do it - puree fresh ones or use prune juice or what??

Lonelymum - hello btw! Haven't spoken to you for ages - must catch up with you on msn sometime! Like you I have, at times, let my older ones sleep in bed with me and now they all sleep brilliantly. I was hoping that I could get away with doing this with ds4 as dh doesn't like him being in the bed (bit nervous of rolling on him I think) but I might have to let him fall asleep then move him back to his cot. ds3 is usually a good sleeper, but when it gets to 4am onwards he tends to start stirring so I'm a bit nervous of having him up at the same time as sorting out ds4, and as dh works night, it could get a bit tricky when he's working to cope with the 2 on my own.

[hermykne]

queeneagle
i used tinned prunes, stewed (in water, if they came in syrup) just to soften further and then used my hand blender on them.
i suppose u could use prune juice but i just add the puree to his porrdge or sometimes to a fruit mix(banana etc) hth

[Tiny1]

QueenEagle,

I am just pcking up on what you say about the eczema on the face and the green snot. My DS who is 17 months has exactly the same and is sleeping very badly. He has actually been given Piriton (an antihistamine) to take at night as the GP thinks the eczema is due to something external... maybe hayfever... Funny thing is that Piriton has a sedative effect but even that is not curing the problem and he is still waking. We just take him into our bed as that is the only way we all sleep as he shares a room with his older DD and I don't want her waking too. Am convinced that the face and snotty nose is waking him up as he used to be ok at night, always an early waker but ok. This is not much help I know but hoping to get to the bottom of the eczema...

[QueenEagle]

hermykne - thanks for that, I will buy some and try it. I gave him some mushed banana tonight which he wolfed down.

koalabear - Think I need to be a bit more adventurous with his food now and prob need to up the quantities a bit as I was holding back on giving him too much as he started so early (13 weeks)


Tiny1 - Even though my HV has reassured my about ds's snotty nose, surely it's not normal to have it for this long unless he has hayfever or something? I wouldn't be surprised if it was as it goes hand in hand with eczema and dh suffers from it too. When I suggested to my GP my older ds might have had it when he was a year old, he poo-poohed the thought. I have some piriton but the label says only for over the age of 1.


I appreciate all of you taking the time to post, it's woken me up to a few ideas, so thank you

[QueenEagle]

Oh bum, I posted that then realised I'd missed you out dinosaur - sorry! What is the Tanya Byron method you saw in the Times???

[hermykne]

queen eagle banana can cause constipation, i only give ds one in the morning time so its kinda passing thru by evening.

theres some thing about the b.a.r.t list, bananas, apple sauce(surpirse) andrice cant rem the t one. my friend told me about it.

[hermykne]

QE
my other friend has a little boy who always seems to have a greenish snotty nose and his dad is quite sensitive to dairy, he eats it but it does cause him to lose smell, etc, her son doesnt show any other allergic symtoms and she hasnt withdrawn milk
i am sure you know all this as u mention your ds has excema (cant spell)
she goes to this alternative homepathic woman for his ailments

[hermykne]

constipation discomfort

hope it works

[QueenEagle]

oh dear - hope ds isn't going to have a bad belly because of that - I didn't know!

Thanks for the link too.

I didn't realise there might be a link between eczema and dairy allergy; whenever I've mentioned it to the HV or GP I've just been given some cream and bath lotion, no-one has ever mentioned a link, but then again it's probably not that bad for anyone to suggest a link.

[hermykne]

queen eagle
i had excezma as a child, round my ears, behind the knees and on my head and the consultant i saw, a lovely old man, took me off dairy and it worked. i grew out it by 10/12.
i ll see if i can find some links.