LO wakes up crying- thoughts?

mamatotwins0812

For mobiles, lo's are 15 mo. One of my guys will typically wake up around 5am (the time varies but its usually about this time) and just wail. Sometimes he does it 30-40 mins into a nap too. I know that crying when he wakes is typical when he's still tired, so I know this is the cause but I was just wondering if anyone has any experiences or insight? I know for certain it's not nightmares/terrors either bc he has those and it's different....this is definitely caused by just still being tired but is there anything I can do? I usually go in and just rub his back and that works (if I don't he will wake his brother and we will have a very early start to our day), but it's exhausting to do that almost every morning and always have broken sleep. I'm fairly certain that other than CIO, which I'd prefer not to do for several reasons, there's not much I can do but was really just curious if anyone else has experiencd this. It's a terribly unpleasant way to be woken up, both for me, him, brother etc. I'm hoping it just stops but doesn't seem to be. TIA.

jessican08

My DS is like this - he cries out in his sleep a few times each night and then around 5am, he'll cry for a bit. If it goes on more than a few minutes I'll go in and rub his back, tell him it's not time to get up yet and then leave again. He almost always goes back to sleep after 5-10 minutes. I don't know that there is much to be done other than stay up and comfort him if you don't want to let him CIO a bit.

I don't do extinction CIO (I think that's what it's called). I do progressive waiting. So check every 5, then 10, then 15, then 20 minutes. I don't think either of them have gone on longer than 15 minutes.

jcath

One of my girls does that.  I don't go in the room b/c while the crying doesn't wake the other twin up, my entering the room wakes her up.  I usually just watch on the video monitor, most of the time she is only half awake.  Sometimes she'll stand up and I can talk to her through the monitor and tell her it's not morning yet and she needs to go back to sleep.

pizzo84

My girls are 3 and STILL wake up crying. If it happens during a nap, it usually means they are still tired, and I rub their backs until they fall back asleep. If it happens between 9:00 pm and 4:30 am usually a little rock and rub does the trick... between 4:30 and 7:00 it's everyone in the family bed for a few hours of squirming and getting kicked in the head.

As it gets closer to morning my patience seems to wear out and I'd do almost anything to preserve my own sleep!

PS. It doesn't happen every night.

mamatotwins0812

Oh boy!! @pizzo84 that doesn't give me much hope lol. But I'm the same way, I wish I could wake up peachy when being jostled out of bed by a screaming baby, but I just can't. It's tough. He's a mega squirmer so I don't think he would ever do well coming into bed with me. Once he's out of his crib he's up. Sounds like this is my new normal for the next 18 years lol.

pillowass

Both of mine will randomly wake up crying a couple of times per week. Usually it only lasts a few minutes, but it is incredibly disruptive to our sleep. It seems kind of silly considering where we were 6 months ago (waking up and getting up several times a night) but like I told my DH, we have just reached the next level of unacceptable. 

For us, I'm pretty sure the problem is that we still give them a bottle at night, but only if it's after 3am. I am sure that is confusing to them when they wake up at 1:30 or 2 and we don't come rushing in. So we'll have to wean them from this night bottle. I've told myself that we will tackle this after their 1st birthday in a couple of weeks.

Probably not too helpful - I guess I'm just glad I'm not the only one still struggling with sleep at this age!

pizzo84

mamatotwins0812... it's really not so bad! I feel like I get more than enough rest! However, tonight we put the girls down, and I could hear them talking to each other in there for about an hour... and one told the other to "cry and be sad" so I would come in the room... hmmmm....