Everything is worse at night, right? You always feel better in the morning? I have found this to be mostly true. There is something about the fresh start that comes with a new day and all that. Never in my life, however, have I spent an entire night howling in agony and woken up with giggles and smiles. You know who has?? Insane asylum patients and my beloved child.
I think it's been well established that he isn't the world's best sleeper but we've found a rhythm and it's working... mostly. Does he sleep better next to me? Probably not. He sleeps as well as anyone would if they slept next to a delicious, bottomless, milkshake that whispers, "eeeeeaaaatt me!!!" all night long. Generally, though, he has his shake in peace and goes back to sleep which results in me achieving a restful night.
Anyways, I am not awake at this hour (4:45 am if you must know) to talk about our good nights. Last night (tonight? what do we call it?) B screamed more than he slept. Like pain scream, like someone help me I am in crisis screaming. I am his mom so I should have a better sense about what was wrong probably, but I literally have no idea. He was bouncing and cheerful all day yesterday up until bedtime. He even shoved all other books aside and gleefully grabbed his favorite, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We read it 3 times and he went right to sleep. After a brief 45 min fake out, the agony started.
We are out of town so at first I thought he was just scared from waking up in a strange place. He woke up absolutely wailing. I picked him up and snuggled him and he fell right back asleep. Awww, see? Just needed Mommy! Then that stopped working. Thankfully my saintly mother is also traveling with us (seriously how do people do this without their moms????) so she took a couple shifts while I fitfully slept through the wailing.
Soooo, my question is, does this happen to other babies?? Or does mine have some serious psychological disorder that only manifests itself at night? Is it possible to be manic-depressive-- manic during the day and depressed all night?? Help.
My daughter totally does this. She is 19 months now and it started, well, probably about a year ago when she was your son's age. I would get SO upset and then find terrible ailments to explain her problems and drive my husband up the wall.
ReplyDeleteEven this past week she has been screaming randomly every few nights in a fashion that makes me think of The Exorcist. All I've learned is that I could make up an explanation. (Teething, cold, nightmares) or I could just ride it out and remember it will pass for a few weeks or months before she does it again. (Or, maybe this will be the last time! And soon she will be a totally mature young lady who can calmly explain to me what is going on.)
In any case, I think it is normal enough. Horrible, frustrating, irritating, upsetting and whatever other adjectives you think up at 4am but, I'm pretty sure, normal.