10 month old suddenly screaming when I try to put him to bed

[Monroe]

Hello all. I am a first time poster and I was hoping some of you out there might have some advice. My almost 10 month old ds has become harder and harder to settle at night over the last couple of weeks to the point where he screams the second I try to leave the room and carries on screaming until I come back. This is really unusually as he has always gone down awake and settled himself to sleep from a very early age. Incidently he will go down for his naps through the day without a murmer. Has anyone got any suggestions on how I can get him back on track at night time? I have tried the pick up put down but not sure if I am doing it right. Once I am in the room he stops crying and it is like trying to settle a jack in the box to the point where he thinks it is a game and as soon as he stands up he starts laughing coz he knows I am going to come and lie him back down again. He has even started standing up and then jumping back down when he sees me approach the cot! Took almost 2 hours last night even tho' he was exhausted. Sorry for the long ramble and thanks for reading if you got this far! Any advice welcome!

Have a simular situation as you at the moment with my DS 11 m/o. Although he has been waking early morning and doing the same Have you got a little routine before bedtime?
It may just be a bit of teething pain.. or Lighter evenings - have you got a black out blind? I asked friends about my DS being more clingy than normal and they have said this is an age when they can start to get like this. I have been giving my DS bottle of milk before bedtime and then water if he wakes (not that he always wants it) and trying to resist picking him up as he giggles! Sorry not much help but wanted you to know you are not the only one!
I had a couple of nights whereby he cried alot when I stopped picking him up but he is a little better now.

Its always good to know you are not alone! He has always gone down around the same time every night with never a problem before now but think the clingy thing might be something to do with it. We do have a black out blind so that isn't a problem. Last night was utterly horrible as he only slept from 9pm-11pm then was awake until 2am then slept till 5.30am before waking for the day. Not much fun when you have to go to work! I really think that the heat had something to do with it last night. Know what you mean about the giggling. Its not so funny for you at 2am!! Hope everything goes well with your DS and if you pick up any tips be sure to pass them on!!

I too have a similar problem except my ds is 14 months old and has always been a nightmare. Very clingy, needed to be carried around all the time in a sling etc. Sorry I can't offer any useful advice. I actually came on to the sleep section to start a new thread to ask for help with this. He has had short periods when we've prayed that we've cracked it. He's even gone down to my mum who lives very near, to see if that changes things. When he's with her, it's all fine, then he comes back to us and all hell breaks loose. He's had really nasty teeth for the last week coupled with the heat whioch obviously don't help at as you've said. But this evening he went down at just after 7 and he's still screaming. He will only settle if I sit with him actually touching him - normally that is cos tonight nothing is working! If I move over to the other side of the room he starts screaming. I think he's taking the piss now because he's fine with my mum and goes down better with my dh than me. If go up to him he very often starts talking and grinning at me. I can't bear the thought of just walking away and leaving him but sometimes that's the best thing to do as he drives us demented and I can feel myself wanting to snap. I don't start cooking till late and we're eating at 9.30, 9.45 which is crazy and we don't get a quiet evening to ourselves. I can hear him now almost screamed himself to sleep.

Monroe I am so sorry to have hijacked your thread, but it's such a relief to get it out and to know that other people are having problems!

Wishful thinking about crying himself to sleep, still going strong!

Oh wow i'm not alone! My ds2 is 10months old and normally he is a dream baby. BUT the last week he has been a little horror. We couldn't work out what we'd done wrong til he hung upside down like a fruit bat and i saw...... A HUGE big tombstone on the top gum! So it could be teething, he seems better tonight.

All i can say is good luck and i hope we all get a few hours decent sleep tonight!

Hope your little darlings all slept well last night. DS took an hour and half to settle then was up for an hour through the night. No idea what is going on. Think someone must have switched babies on me when I wasn't looking!

hi monroe there have been a couple of other threads recently about 10 month olds doing this with lots of advice offered. I remember them because my dd was that age at the time i saw them and doing the same! If you search the archives you might find them. Anyway it took me and dp a few nights to work out that she was no longer tired at 7pm, especially if she had her afternoon nap late and woke up later than 3pm, but a few weeks earlier this had been fine for her. So maybe take a look at your lo's routine and see if maybe he needs to start dropping day time sleep or having less? HTH. Oh, and the waking up for an hour thing sounds normal too - my dd is 11 months and has done it 3 times in the past week, having slept for pretty much 11 hours a night since March. She has 2 teeth coming through so mayb that's it??? I hope!

Thanks for that. We had been thinking about the amount of sleep he has been having. We have limited it today and not let him nap after 3pm so we will see if that makes any difference. We do keep checking those teeth also. He has 6 at the minute and apart from the first 2 coming through he hasn't had much problems with them thankfully.
I've read a few of the older threads and a lot of them talk about cc which is something I don't think we are ready to try. The only time I have left him crying longer than 2 minutes he has vomited everywhere and I don't fancy cleaning that up every night!

Hi all...
How is it going Monroe? I am interested to know, as my DS has still been waking 2 - 3 times a night and its driving me mad. Although not picking him up just lying him down and letting him have a little moan back to sleep.. I hope things are better for you?

We have just had this with our 16 month old ds. He went out like a light from 5 months until he was 14 months, but has been a nightmare to put down over the last two months (!). However, he now has 4 pre-molars which weren't there before and has been starting to settle much better over the last week or so. Went out like a light again last night - hurray!!

Hard work, but I'd just grit your teeth and bear it for a week or two in case it's teething. They are meant to be extra clingy whilst teething...

Actually went well the last couple of nights. Not letting him sleep after 3pm seems to be working. He has been really tired at bed time and has settled in around 20mins which we are more than happy with. Woke twice the other night and took a bit of settling and only once last night but went straight back so sleep with a bit of shushing and a back pat. Don't want to pat my own head yet as it has only been 2 nights but fingers crossed things are improving. Also think he has been teething as he has been sticking his finger to the back of his mouth to have a good chew! Hope things are going well for you all.

Glad to hear things have been a little better, It is so reassuring to know. Roll on the full nights sleep again!1 Fingers crossed it continues to get better for us all.

Just thought I'd drop in and say that it definitely seems to be an age thing combined with teething. My 10 mo dd has been doing the very same thing over the past few weeks. Suddenly yelling her head off when I attempt to put her down to sleep, and waking and staying awake for hours in the night.

I have read that this is the age that separation anxiety can kick in - their intelligence has developed to understand that you can leave the room and might not come back.

At least Calpol can deal with the teething - I'm waiting for a similar bottled product to fix the screaming baby clinging to the cot bars...