Ds, now 19 months (GDD, hypotonia, no dx yet) has been keeping us awake far more than we would like. He used to be an ok sleeper only waking a few times in the night and could usually be settled back to sleep by massage or milk when he was younger.
Since about January he's started waking and just screaming... we go in and massage his head or hand and he'll calm down for about a minute, but as soon as we walk out he'll start up again. Or he'll wait about 1/2 an hour and start then. Anyway after a few months of this we started taking him into our bed which I know is probably setting us up for disaster... but we can at least get a bit more sleep.
Ok, getting to a point. He mainly wants to either pull my hair or scratch my arm (he does both in the day) and it's driving me crazy. He can do it while he looks to be asleep, so it seems as if it's just me he's keeping up and then trying to function the next day is starting to be a real struggle. BTW, he usually gets up around 11 or midnight and then continues this on and off throught til about 6 or 7 when he wakes up for the day.
Anyone have any ideas how to get him to be happier in his cot? If we just leave him for a minute, he won't settle himself, so controlled crying is out of the question. And his understanding of things is non-existant so no reasoning or bribes or anything like that.
We've already done medication changes for his reflux which is much better now, and have changed meds for constipation (also better now with new meds)... so two problems that might have contributed to the night time waking are actually not so problematic right now.
I'm wondering about some sort of doll or heartbeat bear (can you tell I'm getting a bit desperate for sleep!) as it's the contact that he seems to really want. But writing this all out, I'm hoping maybe someone will see that I'm missing something totally obvious... or maybe someone is in the same situation??