Last night was horrible.
Seriously. Ho. Rri. Ble. Argh!
Yesterday was a normal day. My son had two good naps, he ate well at all three meals, had his fill of mommy milk and was out for the night with barely a whimper by 7.
But then, out of the blue, he decides to wake up three hours later.
This is unusual for him. Granted, he still has 1 (sometimes 2) night wakings these days, but never that early. When we first heard him, his father and myself did what we usually do, we gave him some time to see if he could sort himself out. As the minutes passed though, instead of calming down, my son’s cries became more and more intense.
We’re not just talking loud here. We’re talking a Banshee-like-scream-that-would-make-any-neighbour-wonder-if-we-were-torturing-our-son loud.
Knowing that he couldn’t possibly be hungry, my partner went up to his room to work his magic and calm him down. As soon as he was out of the crib and in his daddy’s arms, he calmed down…and then proceeded to start squirming wildly around like mad. So, back down to his crib he went. Enter Banshee.
Now, I’m all for letting our little ones learn to self-soothe (we put our son through sleep training at 5 months to regain some sanity, after all), but last night seemed off. After another quarter hour of screaming-his-head-off-for-no-apparent-reason, I caved and decided that I’d nurse him back to sleep.
But here’s the kicker: It Did Not Work!
Damn
Not only did he not fall asleep nursing, he was pinching and prodding and kicking and slapping me and squirming while attached to my breast.
And so, I tried to rock him. I sang him his lullaby and put him up over my shoulder like I usually do when I want to help myself him fall asleep more quickly.
Guess what? It Still Did Not Work!
He was still squirming like mad. Seriously, he could have given a worm a run for his money.
Since he clearly wasn’t hungry, the room temperature was fine, he didn’t feel hot, his diaper passed the sniff test and he wasn’t falling asleep in my arms, I put him back down in his crib.
And then…
The banshee came back…and I left his room, closed the door, settled in my own bed and tried to fall asleep…except I couldn’t because Mr. Banshee just kept screaming and screaming and screaming.
After another 15 minutes or so, I had an epiphany.
TEETHING!
I mean, it had to be that right? He cried when on his back and stop crying while in our arms. I asked my partner if he would kindly get the Advil. He, of course, wanting nothing more than to sleep being the wonderful partner and father that he is, kindly obliged. I gave Charles the medicine as daddy went back to bed and then let him comfort suck his way back to sleep.
Except he didn’t!
Oh he wasn’t crying anymore. He was still squirming wildly though. So I tried rocking him in a different way, by sitting him on my lap. But he continued to squirm and squirm. Except, I then realized that this wasn’t random squirming. No, this was my 8.5 month old trying to turn to face me and climb on me.
The little turd oh-so-wonderful baby was wide awake! To confirm my suspicion, he even started to chat merrily.
AT 11 EFFING 30 PM!
Well, now that I knew that he wasn’t dying of pain from “teething” – because, obviously Mr. If-You’re-Happy-And-You-Know-It had decided that it was a great idea to be wide awake when you’re supposed to be sleeping – I decided to put him back in his crib and get back in my own bed.
Well, he screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed…while I hoped he’d calm down and the dadster was sleeping blissfully.
After an hour of screaming (yes yes, I know, I am a TERRIBLE mom for letting my son scream like that for so long) I got out of bed again to try to soothe my Banshee baby back to sleep again because I couldn’t take the screaming anymore and wanted to sleep I’m an awesome mom who loves to be awake in the dead of night.
Turns out he just wanted to climb all over me and chatter a storm up with me again. By this time, it was 1am. He had been screaming on and off for three hours now and I was pretty much ready to give in and just put him back in his crib, get a pair of earplugs in and go sleep in the shed. But I decided to try one more thing.
A couple of months ago, I purchased a white noise machine that also had the option of projecting some images on the ceiling. We never use this for nighttime sleep as it is much too stimulating for the little man. But I figured that it couldn’t hurt to try given that my son was already wide awake.
It worked!
Oh the joys of being able to sleep!
Of course, Little Dude decided that 5 am was a goo time to wake up this morning, meaning that I got about 3h of sleep last night and he got about 6, but hey, 3 is better than none, right?
And for those of you who may be wondering what kind of mood he is in today, think Jeckyl & Hyde…
Please tell me I will sleep wonderfully tonight!
mommytrainingwheels 
Oh darling little Charles. My son used to do that constantly. Scream and scream and I too would eventually try and let him cry it out but his endurance was not to be questioned. Just when there’s a moment of silence, it’s really not. They are just taking a deep breath to ensure the next round of screaming is more ear piercing than the last.
I was amazed at the amount of endurance he had. I suspect he would have kept it up all night had I let him. And yes, you are totally right, the moment of silence is just the calm before an even bigger storm.
Thanks for stopping by!
Oh sweetie, I have been there. Hopefully it won’t last long for you! And, sometimes those little buggers just want to scream (I wish adults were allowed to get away with that on stressful days too) so what else can you do but let them if you have tried everything else?! Definitely doesn’t make you a bad mom, just a really tired one the next day! Gotta love how dads can pretty much sleep through anything though. My husband is the same way! And he can fall right back to sleep after something while it takes me hours! Men are so lucky! haha!
Thanks for the support. Luckily, I actually got to sleep last night so that’s good 😉
Oh how I wish I had an “off switch” like most men I know, that way, I could fall asleep and stay asleep through anything lol.
Oh man, deep breaths…I do think the sound machine is soothing for them – we don’t have the one that projects lights though…sounds intriguing. Our little guy has decided that standing in the crib and trying to eat it is FAR more fun than napping… 🙂
We’ve used white noise for months now and I wouldn’t go back. It even helps me fall asleep (our room is right next to my son’s room). Ours comes with three projections scenes: underwater, jungle and sheep in the night sky. I usually only use it for naps though, it helps my son calm down. It’s called the Munchkin Nursery Projector & Sound System.
So your little one is pulling up? Awesome! That means that cruising and then walking are not that far off. Have fun haha (ours is only starting to pull up, so we’re heading the same way 😉 ).
Hahaha Aren’t they a joy? 😀
Most of the time, yes. Sometimes…the thought of getting stuck in traffic for 3 hours feels more joyful. Lol.
My son has been waking up every 30 minutes. He is a squirmy wormy and nothing I do makes him happy! Eventually I put him down and he was devastated. After 5 minutes I picked him up and he fell asleep in my arms. It was about 4am! My older son did not get a good nights sleep until he was 4.5 years old! Stay strong, Momma! Time goes by fast!
Oh no! Those nights are SO hard. Maybe it started as a pain in the tummy or something??? Sometimes I swear the pain relief wakes my kid up which maybe happened here? So glad you finally found a solution. It’s SO tough
I seriously have no clue what happened on that night! I was just eager and grateful for it to be over.