At a loss - sleep and separation or both!
My LO is 11 months old and over the last month or so, he has stopped sleeping through the night and loses his mind if he is left alone for just a couple of minutes.
He no longer comforts himself to sleep. Instead, if I try to put him down for bed while he is still awake or just falling asleep, or if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he cries and gets himself so worked up, I am afraid he is going to hyperventilate. This is a whole new type of crying. He doesn't tire himself out or cry for a few minutes and settle down. He completely freaks out. The only way to calm him is to pick him up and/or bring him to bed with us. We don't know what to do. Anyone else been through this?
Also new in the past couple of months is the same type of worked up crying if we leave him to make a bottle or go to the bathroom or anything like that. He becomes so upset. He doesn't do this when we drop him off at daycare or when someone else holds him. Only when we step away for a minute or two.
I assume both of these changes in his behavior are just phases but the sleep issue, primarily, is making us nuts. We don't want to start a habit of him sleeping with us, plus when he does, he is so restless that we can't rest anyway. I have been slapped in the face and kicked in the tummy more times than I can count at this point.
Any ideas?