Saturday, August 6, 2011

Failing Cry it Out

Last week, Aidan went to bed 4 nights in a row without crying!! I put him down awake and he just drifted off to sleep. He has cried himself to sleep every single night since he was 6 months old and we started CIO so naturally I was amazed. I kept hoping it would last.

Tonight, he fell asleep around 7:00 just fine without crying, but woke up 45 minutes later SCREAMING and I mean screaming like somebody was choking him to death. The make your skin crawl sound. Our downstairs neighbors are back from a vacation and I'm suddenly super self-conscious about him crying so I went to rescue him. I rocked him. I tried to feed him. Sat quietly with him on my lap. Tried singing. He was still screaming. It's like he didn't even recognize me. Put him down again and endured that horrible, horrible cry for 15 more minutes before rescuing him and bringing him out with me. I felt guilty the entire time he was out here with me. I'm ruining the pattern. Now, he'll think he can come out and play. Crap crap crap. What is this new piercing cry? I wish I weren't so self-conscious about his crying bugging neighbors. Some nights, I just can't endure the crying. But I know he needs to learn to sleep and he sleeps worse the later I keep him up.

He has also mastered the art of yelling "Maaaama! Maaaaammmmmma!" and the little lip quiver.

Breaks my heart.

2 comments:

Karen said...

It could be a night terror if nothing helped him calm down. I don't know a lot about night terrors, but what I understand is that it is usually 1-2 hours after they fall asleep? I could totally be wrong. But, it's worth looking into. My sis-in-law would have to just sit in the room with my niece while she went through a night terror. Her eyes would be open, she'd be screaming, and sis-in-law couldn't really do anything to help her. And, my niece was between 9 mos and 1 year when it started. That's the first thing that popped into my mind when I read this. Good luck! It could be something else entirely.

Emily said...

I was going to say the same thing! Elijah had night terrors a few times and from what you said about Aiden not seeming to recognize you and the fact that he continued to scream when you were holding him, that's what it sounds like to me. Our pediatrician said that it happens at a certain point during the child's sleep cycle and that if you go and pick them up it can force them to wake up (because they're not actually awake when they're screaming) which causes the sleep cycle to start over again and can result in the same thing repeating at that same point in the sleep cycle. He told me to go in and sit near the bed and watch him, if he stood or reached for me then it meant he was awake and I should hold him, however if he was just screaming and staring into space then I was supposed to just stay near by until it passed so that he could continue through his sleep cycle. If it happens again I would look into it or talk to your pediatrician.