Night-time Screaming. Losing sleep and my mind! Please Help!!

[Lesle]

Dear all

My DS is 11 months and has always been a great sleeper, going from 7-7 every night since we was 3 months old, until about a month ago when he started screaming in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. At the time it coincided with us leaving him overnight with my parents for the first time but that was a month ago and it is getting worse not better so I can't think it's just that. Nothing has changed in his room and I don't think he's ill or teething as he is completely fine during the day. We started leaving his door a little open and a light on outside which seemed to help for a few nights but now he is screaming more than ever. I can't even tell if he's properly awake or not as sometimes he's not sitting up and it seems like he might be half asleep.

We feel like we have tried everything and last night in desperation for a good night's sleep (for us!) we turned off the monitor but as his room is next to ours we still heard him and he screamed for about 3 hours on and off. In the morning he wakes up his usual sunny self and is completely fine all day - eating well and having good daytime naps, as usual.

Sorry for the long post but I'm starting to get quite worried that there might be something wrong with him, or I'm doing something or not doing something to help. I feel pretty useless at the moment and the lack of sleep isn't helping my rational thought! If anyone can offer any words of advice I would be really grateful.

Thanks for listening
Lesle xxx

Bump

???

sorry - new to mumsnet and I don't know what that means!

It means someone is posting a message just to get your original message to the top of the active conversations list.

Isn't this thread also posted somewhere else? I thought I answered earlier and was looking to see what everyone else had said but now I only find this short thread.

Hi Lonelymum

Thanks for the clarification.

This message is elsewhere - no idea what I did but it somehow appeared twice and I couldn't delete one of them!

I'll look for it elsewhere then. Under sleep perhaps?

Hi Lesle, (I think bump means someone has responded so it goes on the active conversation list) Poor you and ds there is nothing worse than broken and little sleep. Especially when things have been great for a while. My dd1 went through a period of waking for about 3 hours a nights when she was about 18months, finally realised she was having to much sleep in the day and when reduced her naps to one long one she setled down again. Or maybe he is having nightmares? We have those friendly face night lights on the walls in dd's rooms and there great. If in doubt take him to the health visitior. Welcome to mumsnet by the way, I only post at night so you won't see much of me.

hiya lesle, had a similar situation with my ds at 8.5 months - after three weeks of it I chucked in the towel (I've also got two little dds, one of whom gets up brutally early, around 5am) and went to see our GP who without hesitation prescribed 10 days' worth of a sedative called hydroxyzine, suitable for babies over six months. I regained my sanity and ds stopped the 11pm - 3am screaming sessions. He still woke most evenings but settled down again really quickly after a cuddle and slept rather than screamed. He never went back to that dreadful habit thankfully (touch wood and all, it's been nearly two months now).