Henry, sleeping in the hiking backpack in Moab. Photo by: Jenny Spilker
Saturday marked the beginning of a ridiculous downward spiral for Henry's sleeping habits. For quite some time now Henry has been a happy sleeper- easily laying down and falling asleep when placed in his crib. Now, I'm having flashbacks to the days when he was an infant and wouldn't fall asleep anywhere except my arms.Now, when I lay him in his crib at nap time, he screams and reaches for me, acting like I'm about to commit some heinous crime by placing him in his crib. In the past, if Henry cried when we put him in his crib, he would console himself and fall asleep within minutes. Now, even an hour later, he's still screaming, SCREAMING!!
Inevitably, I give up and go pick him up. And nearly as soon as he's in my arms, he falls asleep. And, even asleep, if I put him in his crib he wakes up and begins crying again. If I put him in my bed and lay next to him for 10 minutes he'll remain asleep.
In the evening the routine is the same, except after some time, even as short as 10 minutes, of screaming, he falls asleep on his own.
I can't decide, was it the vacation that caused this horrible melodrama or is it the separation anxiety which I've learned is normal at his age?
I've chatted with a couple people and done some research online and came up with a few ideas. Joe and I have tried creating a better sleep time routine, which is fun, but it doesn't remove the crib hatred. Today, at nap time, I placed a couple books and a couple toys and a picture of him and I in his crib, to see if that would placate him while he fell asleep and to potentially avert the separation anxiety (if that's what it is). After 45 minutes of screaming I went up to get him (so he could fall asleep in my arms of course) and he was standing at the rail, covered in tears, holding the picture, with all other toys tossed aside.
What should I do?
2 comments:
This is Shellie, not a sleep expert talking. I have found that two things help when I put Owen down and he doesn't want to go to sleep: 1. Move the nap/sleep time back a bit. 2. Tylenol. Could Henry be teething or have some sort of infection? Owen has had a hard time on and off for about a month or so, and every time he does, when I look at his mouth there is blood on his gums or part of a tooth poking through.
Could be neither of the above, but those are sure bets with us. Good luck. If children came with a direction booklet, it would be a lot easier.
I had a TERRIBLE time with Joey's sleep habits too. What worked for me was weaning him off sleeping with me by actually staying in the room with him until he fell asleep. I would put him in his crib and pat his bum or rub his back, etc...whatever would get him to fall asleep and slowly stopped doing those things and eventually got to the point where I was standing there watching him fall asleep. Just a thought, if it's the separation anxiety that's upsetting him.
Good luck.
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