My 11 month old has always been the most happy, lovely little boy there is. Everybody has always made comments about how smiley he is, he laughs at everything and just seems to love life. He’s never been a great sleeper but meh, I’m so used to it after his older brother was also a terrible sleeper as a baby.
The last 2-3 weeks he’s getting unhappier and unhappier. Started when leap 7 hit and I originally thought that was the problem, he has had a chest infection twice in the last 6/7 weeks and been on antibiotics so that’s also not helped, 4 year old brings every bug home imaginable from school so he seems to have a never ending runny nose.
He seemed a very typical frustrated, over tired baby that was teething but this last week has honestly been something out of a horror movie. His one top tooth is just breaking through the gum and he’s been clingy as hell, like he screams the second he’s put down, barely napping and night time sleep is like something you’d think I was making up honestly. Every night after 30 minutes he wakes crying and it can last up to 1 hour. He then goes on to wake some times every 30 minutes or less. Beside himself crying and crying.
I will admit a dose of Calpol does seem to help somewhat but he does still wake A LOT even with the medicine. Today we have only just managed to get him to nap at 1:15pm after he’s been awake since 7am and we’ve been trying since about 10am. We’re all tired, hungry, had to cancel plans and just generally a little fed up. I’ve been looking forward to Christmas for ages but can’t imagine how miserable it’s going to be if it looks like this.
So my question is.. Can teething really cause such a shift in behaviour? Particularly when the tooth is cutting through? Can it really make them this miserable? When he cut his bottom teeth he did have a runny nose, temperature and he did seem super poorly (I remember taking him to the doctors then too) but I don’t remember the crying, refusing naps and horrendous night time sleep when he did get them.