I’m not sure whether this is the right area/topic to post on, but our 6.5 month old baby recently had a big operation, which took just under 6 hours. Initially he was recovering brilliantly - happy as normal in the day, and largely just waking at nights for his pain meds but then dropping off after that - but in the past few days his sleep has just deteriorated. (He’s no longer on pain meds — on hospital guidance.)
He now wakes crying every hour for the first few hours before waking every ten minutes after that and will only properly then go to sleep lying on me (normally he slept in a crib as he never liked co sleeping, we think because he has bad reflux.) In the day time he’s waking from naps after 30 minutes, sometimes after only 18 minutes, inconsolable and clearly exhausted. He has always been a poor sleeper but the two weeks before the op he had started sleeping 8-10 hour stretches and was pretty great at self soothing, and he had one amazing 10 hr stretch a few days after the operation but since then it’s like he’s forgotten how to fall asleep by himself. He was also a really sociable smiley little baby who loved meeting people but he screamed when he saw DP’s parents at the weekend and refused to be held by them, and screamed again when I took him to meet a childminder yesterday even when she just spoke to him and I was holding him.
Has anyone had similar from their baby? Did anything help? It’s just breaking my heart - especially him being scared of people as he loves people normally, and him being so tired himself - but DP and I are also so tired we can barely think straight (we’re doing shifts but live in a small flat so both still wake when he cries). We have another big op coming up in the new year for him, and I’m now dreading it even more than I was before.