Well, I think we've managed to wean Erin off her dummy (aka soother or pacifier) because she does not ask for it anymore. J and I have made it a point not to even mention the word so she won't get reminded about it. And ever since that dummy fell off the bed the other night, I never tried to get it back so the little girl won't see it anymore. Even so, she still manages to wake us up in the unholiest of hours. I reckon it's because she can't go back to sleep sometimes without her dummy so we have to give her a bottle of milk just to have her suck on something.
Other times though the culprit is night terror. If you're not familiar with it, here's a definition from the RCH:
A child who is having a night terror is stuck halfway between being asleep and awake. They are awake enough to get out of bed, talk/scream and have their eyes open, but they are asleep in that they do not respond to a parent trying to console them. They usually do not remember the episode in the morning.
I know she's not having nightmares because it is so difficult to console her when she's screaming her lungs out in the middle of the night. One thing that seems to jolt her out of this is turning the lights on. You see, Erin can't fall asleep by herself if the lights are on (except of course if she's really tired). Having the lights off keeps her sleeping throughout the night. So when I turned them on one night terror occasion, she stopped crying and went back to sleep after swaying her in my arms.
I am guessing that too much rough play could take part in a recipe for night terrors. I've observed that whenever we had such play sessions at least an hour before sleeping time, she'd usually get these attacks. But we do tend to forget so in the end, we pay for it. Lesson learned! We certainly need more quiet time in our routine so we can all have peaceful night's sleep. Otherwise we'd all be sleepy sitting in our computer desks while we work. It is truly a challenge!
5 comments:
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Leah, our little Zechy had episodes like that too and at first I wouldnt think that an infant can be susceptible to such but when I enquired from our pediatrician, she said the same, it somehow contributes to the activity that they had from the day and since babies store information more than we adults do, their subliminal consciousness seem to mix with their REM stage... so after Zechy's bath, we make sure that our activities leads to his downtime period and i find too that while he takes his last bottle (before he goes to bed - mind you this is after 30mins of his dinner) i like to sing to him mellow songs... why not try putting mellow music in her room in the most minimum volume maybe that would help...
anyway, hope this helps and thanks for posting, at least i know im not alone in this situation... but kids are resilient and they can overcome this in no time
congratulations for weaning her from pacifier! :)
my little Toby also has this night terror episodes.. sigh... especially when he had a LLLOOOOONNGG and BBBUUUUSSSYYY day :)
I'm glad I am not alone! I know we should be putting more downtime to our routine, but this little girl keeps jumping up and down on her bed after we give her a bath at night. Hirap talaga! Siguro nga we should turn off the telly (big sacrifice!) at this time to help her relax. She loves lullabies so we will try that with her.
thanks for all your thoughts. :)
Hi leah,,, My boy used to have night terror ,,, but its been a year and a half now that hes been ok... Yeap the activity before they go to sleep hype their brians up... Briaden used to watch telly before he go to bed... But we changed his routine and he is doingfine... and they say that they can outgrow night terror......
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