Hi all,
I'm the dad of an incredible 10 and a half month old baby. He's always had bad sleep due to reflux and colic first, teething and various illnesses afterwards... But just when we were thinking he was finally able to sleep well (2-3 hour nap during the day, 5 hour stretches at night), he started having really bad nights again!
He'll go down in his cot basically by himself at around 7pm, have a first stretch up to 9:30/10:30pm (depending on the day) and then wake up screaming his lungs off. We'd go to soothe him and try to put him back in the cot, but he'd hold onto our clothes and start crying again. So we co-sleep (we've done it since he was 2 months old and started suffering with reflux): one of us stays in bed with him, the other goes to sleep on the sofa.
It would not be a major issue, if he didn't still wake up every 1-2 hours screaming and thrashing like crazy! We try to give him the pacifier, he refuses it first, still screaming... then he takes it and goes back to sleep almost immediately. He's not hungry as when mum is in bed with him, he screams anyway (he's still EBF)... and when he's actually hungry the pacifier doesn't soothe him.
We don't know what's wrong... he does have one tooth coming out, but he never screamed so much for the other 7 he already has! Naps are fine, he takes a very long one (2-2.5 hours) in the middle of the day. We know he should still take two naps, but if we try to put him down earlier in the morning, he only sleeps for 30 minutes.
Is it separation anxiety? Could it be night terrors? Anyone had similar experiences?