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Original poster

Waking up screaming

11 replies

Haz1516 · 03/02/2019 08:00

Hi,

My baby will be 8 months old next week, and over the last week or so he has started waking up screaming after 2-3 hours sleep at night. Last night he went to bed at around 7 and woke up at 10ish absolutely screaming and couldn't be calmed down back to sleep for over 45 minutes. Gives me flashbacks of a colicky newborn! He then woke several times throughout the night after this.

He's never been the best sleeper, but we had about a month at 6 months of doing 7-8 hour stretches. The last few weeks he's up every couple of hours, even when he isn't waking screaming. He has also recently started fighting all his naps that he used to go down really well for.

During the day he seems fine. He had a new tooth come through on Friday, but surely that shouldn't be causing this much aggro especially now it's already through? He has 3 meals a day (small dinner), is mainly bf but has one bottle of formula a day. He is also on the brink of crawling, but only going backwards. I'm thinking about getting a gp appointment but don't know if it's be a waste of time.

Any help/advice appreciated! Would love to have a happier baby at night again.

OP posts:
RelaxDontDoooIt · 03/02/2019 11:41

Oh it could be anything! Teething/scared/bad dream/ new habit. Just keep calm, cuddle then back to bed. My daughter still goes through these phases age3. It stops and starts and you never know why!

crazychemist · 03/02/2019 14:19

My DD often had teeth come through in pairs, could be another one about to pop through! She also had a very rough patch at about 9 months when she was just getting mobile and I hear that’s pretty common. Apparently their brain practices movements during sleep, which makes their sleep lighter and can mean they wake between sleep cycles (so commonly wake at 30 mins and then at 2 hours)

Original poster
Haz1516 · 03/02/2019 17:08

Thanks for your responses! So it's actually sort of normal then? It's just that it lasts so long and takes so long to resettle him that I worry there's something wrong, or he's in pain.

OP posts:
crazychemist · 03/02/2019 20:00

I think it’s pretty normal and usually passes once they’ve got over whatever it is (either the teeth have come through or they’ve mastered whatever skill was emerging). It does come back now and then though, I’m afraid it’s not a completely smooth ride from here!
Keep calm and keep cuddling!

MeadowHay · 04/02/2019 12:20

Hi Haz, my DD does this now too, she's 7.5months. She has been doing the frequent night-waking for her dummy in phases ranging from 2-3 times a night to every 30mins all night up and down in phases since about 4 months old, lol, but the waking screaming her head off totally inconsolable for 45 mins thing she's just started doing a few nights ago, she has done it every night now for about 5 nights and last night she did it twice, however last night was the first night that we didn't need to pick her up as we were able to settle her in her cot both times and the second time only took about 15 minutes. I have no idea what the problem is, and she has no teeth yet at all. She does have a bit of a cold though and the onset of it did roughly coincide with these weird wakings so I'm putting it down to that!

blondeirishmummy84 · 04/02/2019 13:32

There is a sleep regression from 8-10 months and my ds did this too around that age - waking screaming blue murder!

Original poster
Haz1516 · 04/02/2019 17:32

Thanks all for the reassurance! Hopefully this phase won’t last too long!!

OP posts:
MeadowHay · 05/02/2019 09:44

I hope not too Haz - we had THREE of them last night, which is a new high. Although all settled in cot without needing to pick her up, and only one of them was a long, 45 min sesh, the other two were like 15 mins. Yawwwwwn...

butterflycatcher · 05/02/2019 21:48

Oh my goodness this is happening to us too. My DS is almost 7.5 months and for the last two weeks he has woken up screaming after 1 sleep cycle of being put to bed. He then wakes on and off for several hours screaming. Around 11pm he usually settles and sleeps through til the morning. We've completely lost our evenings. He's also incredibly tired in the mornings as he hasn't had a full sleep. I feel like we've entered a never ending cycle of overtiredness :S
Not much advice but here in solidarity with you.

Original poster
Haz1516 · 06/02/2019 08:23

Well we seem to have had a few nights scream free now - so I wonder if maybe it was a combination of teething and tiredness? He’s now waking up every 2 hours for his dummy though, which is the only thing he has no interest in putting in his mouth, but I guess that’s a whole other story...

OP posts:
MeadowHay · 06/02/2019 11:06

Haz Ugh, DD was doing the dummy thing from being 4 months old on and off in phases, many nights it has been every 30 minutes all night. She can sometimes put it in herself now if we give her enough of a chance but then leaving her risks her getting too awake and then needing more input to settle so it's a delicate balance Confused.

We had our worst night yet last night...well, sorta. She was asleep on me by half 7 and in bed by ten to 8 which is the earliest in weeks. She woke once for her dummy around 9pm which I popped in for her. Then she woke at 12.15am screaming hysterically and she cried on and off until around 1.30am when we gave her Nurofen and offered her milk which she drank 5oz of, but she only drank 5oz of her bedtime bottle when often she drinks like 7oz-ish. So idk if it was cos she was hungry but she fell asleep again in line with when the Nurofen would have kicked in so it might have been pain. She wasn't back in bed til 2am and neither were me and DH. But then she actually slept all the way til DH's alarm woke us all at 7am with no crying wake-ups for her dummy, and she hasn't done a stretch like that without dummy wake-up for months. So I'm wondering whether part of our problem is hunger in the night. But usually she just seems to want to go back to sleep so I don't want to actually wake her for a bottle if she just wants to sleep. Last night was the first time she's had a night feed since she was 12 weeks old but we used to give the last feed around 10pm until she was about 6 months old though.

We are going away at the weekend and staying with friends who have an EBF 3 month old who feeds to sleep no bother and goes straight back to sleep on a night after waking for feeds, I'm wondering whether I should ask them if they definitely want us to come cos the multiple middle-of-the-night screaming sessions aren't really going to be doing them any favours...

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