Light sleeper

[wellsie]

This is my first message, so please be gentle. I have a 4.5 month old son who used to tolerate all sorts of noise whilst asleep, but over the past month he has become a very light sleeper and wakes when he can hear people talking, the TV, neighbours running up and down stairs, etc. He wakes screaming and unless I get in there quick to calm him down, he'll scream for what seems like hours! Husband and I are now talking in hushed tones, the TV is turned down low and I nearly always blow a gasket when the neighbours start running up and down the stairs at 10.30pm (how on earth they've got the energy at that time of night I don't know!) Would like to hear from anyone who has experienced this prob and how you solved it?

Hi wellsie, I'm not sure there IS a solution short of sound-proofing your son's room! My daughter's also quite a light sleeper (though she's quite a bit older, 19 months) but what I've found is that when she's in a phase of deep sleep you can pretty much drop a ton of bricks next to her cot and she won't wake up whereas in a light phase a sudden noise will bring her from near wakefulness to full wakefulness. None of which is much help to you I know. I think you might just have to go with it for now, you can't live like silent monks and you certainly can't control the neighbours. Eventually you'll find that he doesn't wake up so easily during his light sleep phases and noise won't be such an issue.

Oh, forgot to say, there is a 'kind of solution' but it might cause a different kind of sleep habit. A low but constant noise in your son's room will help to drown out the more erratic and sudden noises elsewhere. Last summer when my daughter had a fan on in her room I found she wasn't disturbed by any other noises. Why not try something like that? I've heard other people say they do things like put a radio on in between stations so there's a constant background of 'white noise.' Never tried that myself. I'm quite keen for dd to learn how to sleep through some noises as I have to be able to get her to sleep on train journeys quite regularly and there's loads of noise then. Bloody mobile phones!