Sleep....

[justwhatwasithinking]

I've lurked for ages, not really posted before, but we could do with some advice please. We recently (think Italian time frame!) adopted a DS (14 months). We have two BC (7 and 4). Please be gentle!

So, DS2 had no routine with the FC, and we (him and us!) have gently found something that works. It was led by him, it's not militant, but it does provide a pattern to the day, and DS2 is very settled with it. He happily sleeps at lunchtime, in his cot, for a couple of hours with no problems.

Night time, he settles easily in his cot (after bath/story/bottle) and sleeps anywhere between 2 - 4 hours. When he wakes, he becomes hysterical. There is no warm up whinging/moaning, he just loses it. We're sleeping in the same room, so either we are still up and are there in under a minute, or we're actually in the room with him. Once he's awake, it is really hard to calm him down - we've tried keeping lights off/putting them on/night lights/all dark/patting him in the cot/picking him up/singing/keeping quiet/rocking him/putting him in bed with us...... He has a dummy, and he spits it out. This can then go on for hours. He does sometimes settle quickly (but no idea what we do differently on these occasions), sometimes this happens once a night, but can happen more often.

Any suggestions? Anything that might help? We know he's had a really stressful month, with meeting us and moving from FC, and we're not bothered about the sleep so much as the fact that he just sounds really sad. He had a terrible sleep pattern at the FC as far as we can gather, although even the SW commented on how vague the info was. Will this settle over time? Should we just continue to cuddle? Or is there anything we can do to help him? Thanks.

Bit scary to used as a timeline justwhatwasithinking!

I can't add anything much but did not want to read and run.

It sounds like you are doing all you can to calm him and I am sure it is very distressing for him and you.

I think if your adoption agency or local authority has an attachment or parenting expert I would speak to them.

I would also establish whether he is fully awake when he is crying or is it a form of 'night terrors'. Although according to the NHS they normally affect children 3-8 years and your child is a lot younger.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/night-terrors/pages/introduction.aspx

I am not saying that is what it is at all, just a thought.

Can I ask what is happening before he goes to bed?

Is he quietening down in his bedtime routine or being stimulated? Being moved around a lot, fed? Does he have quite stories, non-exciting, lullabys etc rather than TV or loud music or stuff. I know this is more for older kids but sometimes bedtime stories can be quite lively just before kids try to go to sleep. Again, your child is so young this may not be relevant. So please do feel to ignore me.

If you are on my time scale you are in early days and I hope it will get better very soon BUT I am no expert so please do seek some professional advice (health visitor or GP, maybe) if you do not get a suitable answer on here!

Bless you.

quiet not quite stories!

PS have just seen on another thread that you have birth children so you probably know all of this so feel free to ignore me!

DS was a similar age when adopted and His sleep was always the biggest problem over time. He had food issues but they were sorted within a few months but the sleep thing is always where his anxiety shows.

I used dim light lullaby music playing and gradual withdrawal. I always cuddled him or rocked him when he was distressed. DS's sleep actually got worse over until he couldn't get to sleep alone at all at his worst point. We ended up co-sleeping until he was about 5 and then at 5 he would go to bed in his own and then get up when he woke around midnight and get in with me (in varying states of distress).

He started sleeping through the night at 7! That sounds a bit of a nightmare but actually once I'd stopped caring about what the right thing to do was it helped and I would just comfort him as much as he needed.

I'm not sure how much help that is in practice but you will gradually learn what (if anything helps) and he will slowly start to a little less anxious . In my experience it was a slow process though, I didn't get much of an evening to myself for a very long time.

Thanks - it's not a night terror (our middle child has had those, when she was a bit older). Bedtime is really calm - we're not really a TV/computer household (not on very much at all), and follows the same boring pattern (tea, play, bath, stories - currently individually done, bottle, bed). He's absolutely fine about going to bed (both at nap time and in the evening), it's once he wakes in the middle of the night that it's awful.

I'm sorry to say Italian that I've never found an HV or GP who can help on things like sleep or food issues with adopted children - they just don;t have the experience.

In the absence of an underlying cause with some history involving previous neglect in my (unprofessional!) opinion, sleep issues are nearly always caused by anxiety. Just think about how you sleep when you are anxious and all will become clear! And I don't think there's any quick fix to that because when you think about it, they have plenty of cause to feel anxious because they've already suffered at least two losses and no "technique" is going to sort that out in a hurry.

You might have this for a little while. Definitely ask your social worker for suggestions and anything that might suggest a trigger.

I would say be very consistent and do all you can to link night time "you" to the daytime "you" - an item of clothing, your perfume, a special teddy or blanket, a certain music mobile. Do you know what his bedroom was like at the FC's house - can you make it more "similar"?

Given what he's gone through, he is probably just waking up terrified and disorientated and with no way to express it. It's a huge ask of such a small child to understand why he's moved to a stranger's house and remember where he is when he wakes up in the night.

I would suggest have a dim light on and a mobile or something he can see from his cot. Maybe a twinkly music one so it becomes familiar to him? Might darkness or some other random thing like a noise, or the sound of you coming to bed (or your DH's voice?) be taking him back to a previous distressing experience?

I highly recommend "Tiddlers" and "Toddlers" by Caroline Archer if you don't already have it. She is brilliant on all this stuff. (congratulations and the best of British luck too )

SW suggested controlled crying and is going to ask the HV her advice tomorrow when she phones her. Didn't want to mention that first, as I didn't much like that advice (!) and also thought the HV would have so little knowledge about adoption and attachment that I didn't think it would be much use. (My GP husband freely admits to not being an expert on these things either! Well, what he actually said was 'I don't know everything'!)

We both fell it is anxiety related. He sounds sad.

He also has food issues (which is a whole other thread)

x posted with Kew but glad to be in consensus!

Ha! Health visitor pitched up once after dd2 joined us, nice lady, offered her specialist colleague to help with dd's sleep issues (which weren't serious). I said, 'No offence, and at the risk of sounding arsey, but I am an experienced parent and know the main sleep training techniques. It's just that I'm not prepared to use them with a newly adopted baby. But if your colleague has experience and understanding in the area of adopted children, I'd love to talk to her". Said colleague then dropped round a sheaf of photocopied sheets taken from some US textbook, advocating crying it out and keeping the child locked in ("If you think your child is genuinely frightened or panicking, you may talk to them reassuringly through the door" - I kid you not.)

Straight into the recycling bin with them. What a waste of everyone's time.

SW suggested controlled crying

Sorry but I think that's terrible advice. I can;t beleive an adoption sw would seriously suggest that especially knowing my DS as I do now what that would have taught him is that when he's anxious and scared that "you're on your own mate".

If thats the kind of inane advise your sw gives you I'd suggest to stop asking and post on here instead!

Truly dreadful advice.

I can imagine that it is an expression of general distress, 'saved up' for nighttime.

At the moment he is probably not sure enough of you yet, for letting you settle him when his distress 'erupts' like that. I suppose there is probably not much you can do about 'removing' his distress - the experiences he has had, including the fairly recent move to your family, won't go away. But with time, he might find it easier to allow himself being settled by you. To help that along, I imagine anything that helps with bonding and attachment and constancy and security, during day time, will help build that feeling of trust that will help him get to the point where he can find solace in your presence and go back to sleep more easily. (But it will take time.)

Also, maybe (impossible for me to say, but purely for you to judge) if you can help him 'feel' his distress/let some of it 'out' during day time, there might be less pent up which then explodes at night.

He is very young, but despite his young age he may have had to learn to control his emotions to an extent - maybe he learned not to cry because that would draw negative attention -so maybe if you can help him to cry more during the day? (Perhaps by making a huge over-the-top fuss about him when he stumbles and falls, or bangs his head, or hurts himself another way)

But these are just guesses, you'd have to think about it based on other aspects of how he is, not just regarding the sleeping.

Don't forget to look after yourself - you are all adapting to a new situation, there's no point in pretending it's not hard.

Not being awful but is your SW quite inexperienced? You could ask to speak to the Post-Adoption team, in our county they are the ones with the actual understanding of attachment and trauma/grieving issues.

Love the idea of you yelling reassuringly through the keyhole loud enough for a screaming child to hear you

God there are some dimwits out there aren't there!

He's probably crying because he's sad and anxious and let him scream teh place down on his own isn't to make him less sad an anxious... really there aren't enough in teh world for that!

For DS part of the problem is being alone (still). He hates being alone, sleeping was always a big trigger for his separation anxiety because going to sleep for such a young child really is a separation and he's just been separated from everything he knows.

There's no easy way around it in my experience but it does get better and yes you do get better at comforting them. I went through a hideous period in the very early days when I couldn't comfort DS at all when he was distressed. It was so upsetting for both of us.

But it does pass.

major x-posting there, sorry.

And I have to laugh about another thread where someone is suggesting remortgaging to get a maternity night nurse so she can have a third child and sleep through the night. At least two posters have suggested adopting instead to cut out the early sleepless nights.

Yep thats adoption never a sleepless night and no anxieties

Thank you everyone.

To be fair, our SW didn't use the term controlled crying, just said maybe he needs to be left to cry. In my head I sort of think that's the same thing, but I'm prepared to be wrong. She is very nice, very experienced, and has given us some useful advice about other things. It's just this I'm not sure about.

We'll start doing some of the things people have suggested.

Thats a bit like school coming up with a strategy of DS going off to sit in a corner on his own instead of using time out which distresses him. And when I pointed out that it was remarkably similar to time out with a they pointed out the lovely badge they'd made with some other name on it (Time alone maybe?). To which I pointed out that it wasn't the words he was scared of but the feelings.

They still didn't really get it!

Good luck - I suspect perseverance and patience and lots of soothing will work in the end.

My did was also 14 months at adoption and was great (though very clingy) during the day but at night, o boy, she used to howl. She would settle fine but wake several hours later and be utterly inconsolable in her crying. She would push away from me when I'd lift her. Eventually I figured that if I held her facing away from me, she didn't react against me. I just used to hold her quite tight, and kept on quietly, calmly talking to her, telling her i knew she was scared but i was going to mind her always etc. Of course I know she didn't understand me (international adoption) but it calmed ME down and it was better for her if I was calm. It was just awful. As another poster suggested upthread, it was as if she held it together all day but the sadness and anxiety came out at night.
For us, it continued for a few months but stopped being every night after maybe 6 weeks.

And I'd like to add my horror to your own and everyone else's at the very idea of doing controlled crying with any an adopted child. OMFuckingG, what planet is she on??

[shocked] oh my days! cry. Cry it out. Whatever they say it is very cruel (IMHO) and I would not do it with any baby.

It is a truth, I think, that even good people can give occasional bad advice!

PS Yes, I think health visitors and GPs may not know a lot about adoption at all, but I said if you don't get an answer here (which people usually do) and I must admit my GP and my former health visitor were excellent if there are any other causesthey might be able to help. But i do think Kew probably knows a lot more.

Not sure I can suggest anything because, so far, DS has slept pretty well. He had a bad week but always settled when I went in. For some reason, he liked me to walk up and down our stairs - for 3 mins - so I did this.

Completely sympathise though - sleep deprivation is so hard. I struggled with lack of sleep for a week. But am thankful it was only a week.

Can you bring him into bed with you? Lovely for bonding.