Clingy!

[karma]

My 19 month old ds has just had chicken pox (was quite poorly with it) and during and since then has become extremely clingy and very upset at night, only falling asleep when he's held, and waking several times in the night. Has always been confident and out going, and never has really needed any reassurance from me in day to day situations. Now he follows me around the house wanting to be picked up and held alot of the time. Daytime I can cope with but nights are a different kettle of fish! In your experiences, can this happen after illnesses, or is it just commonplace in children around this age? Nothing has happened in our home life that may have stressed him out, and his routines remain the same. Any opinions would be great to hear.

Well Im not quite sure if this is going to be helpful, but I went away for a couple of days to my dp's house, without dd who stayed with my mum. When I got back, she was very clingy, which I didnt mind because I had really missed her too so I was enjoying the attention she was giving me, as before she would never give me a hug or anything. But now she is still clingy, even though this was weeks ago. So I think maybe it's because they have got into the habit of having so much attention, they still want it, and expect it. Or at least that's what I think. HTH

karma, I've been going through something very similar with my 18 month dd and have just posted about it. She was a good sleeper until a week or so ago when she had a bit of a tummy bug which meant she had diarrhea in the night and we had to change all her clothes and bed clothes and cuddle her back to sleep. She's much better now but is not sleeping through the night at all any more. Last night we were up for 2.5 hours with her on and off. I'm trying to be both reassuring and consistent in my approach but so far it's not working, in fact I think it's getting worse.

In my opinion the clinginess is probably partly age-related as dd had become more clingy and 'worried' about me leaving her to go to work than she had been. This was before she was ill. She's with her dad when I work so it's always been fairly easy. I think this coincided with her being ill and it's kind of snowballed into a full-blown 'sleep problem' which I never thought would happen as she's been so good up until now.

I wish I had some advice for you but obviously as I'm posting about the same thing I'm also stuck as to know what to do. I hope one or other of us gets some helpful advice from someone who's been through this and come out the other side.

What's your ds doing in the night in more detail?

furniture, thanks for your reply. Basically he's screaming as soon as we put him in his cot but settles instantly once he's held. Once and only once he is in a deep sleep can we put him in his cot. Then he has been waking a couple of times each night and we have to perform the same procedure, although it does't seem to be as successful at 2am! He is really screaming and seems really traumatised, and have never seen him like this before. It has been a nightmare. Got desperate a few days ago and was looking on the internet for sleep clinics and suchlike. Came across "Amazing Baby Sleep Secrets" by "The Baby Sandman" Michael Quarles. He basically guarantees that his system will work and has trawled through all the sleep specialist's work from Ferber to Sears and co. Based on all this work he has taken the best bits and constucted his own plan. This encompasses a softly softly approach aswell as a more cc approach. As I said I was desperate at this point so ordered the internet copy of his work there and then (125 odd pages which I then printed off). And yes alot of it I already knew and was doing but it was nice to have all the theories in one place! We started the "Baby Sandmans" programme on Saturday night and had 70 minutes of crying (with comfort at certain intervals), but amazingly he slept through that night. Tonight we have had 35 minutes of crying (but less intense and no reaching up to be held from ds like we had the previous night). He is now asleep (we hope until the morning!) I'm not saying that we've cracked it, but there has been a definite improvement. I am a particularly soft mum, and this period has been very stressful with the long stretches of crying, but I knew that my sanity was at stake if I didn't act now. Quarles book seems to be a softer version of cc, although it has still been dreadful to implement. Will keep you posted as to how things go.

Hi karma, that sounds interesting, I've never heard of that book, maybe I should check it out.

You didn't say if your ds was previously a good sleeper?

I wonder, given that they're such a similar age, if this is a developmental thing. I know that doesn't help matters in terms of having to deal with it now. But I don't know about you, I feel that I HAVE to deal with this in the right way otherwise I'm worried about both causing a problem that will go on and on, and / or upsetting my dd deeply and making her afraid of night times. I've been trying to stick to cc but it's really having no effect so have gone for a 'softer' option. What I've been doing is going in every 5-10 minutes, giving dd a v.v. brief cuddle and kiss and saying simply 'it's time to sleep', putting her down again and leaving v. quickly. She stands up immediately and screams but that then turns to her just saying my name and that gets more and more sleepy sounding until eventually I go in and lie her down and she doesn't bother to stand up again. this takes anything from 5 mins to an hour.

Hi furniture. Our ds has never been that brilliant at night - was waking 2 hourly every night until 7 months, then seemed to settle and sleep through for a while, but then he'd go back to waking several times a night. Settling at bedtime has never really been a problem (unless he's ill), but waking in the night was usually dealt with by milk (bottle) which would send him straight back off. That was until recently when he wouldn't take the milk (obviously at this age he doesn't need it). Amazingly he slept through again last night, and settled tonight after 2 minutes of crying (not screaming). I hope that we've cracked it! It sounds as though you are doing a similar thing with your dd - how long have you been doing this approach for? I know what you mean about not wanting to traumatise your child, it's a really tricky one. Let me know how things are going.