# Depressed abour 20 month old and sleep



## babymaggie (Nov 11, 2007)

Noah has NEVER slept well, not from the beginning. He has always been a very light sleeper, needed to nurse to fall (and often stay) asleep, naps short periods of time, etc. He is now almost 20 months old. I am 13 weeks pg and decided that I had to nightwean a little more than a month ago. It was hard, but he did pretty well. And for the first time after nightweaning he STTN. Granted it was from something like 11pm to 5am, but that was good enough for me.
After nightweaning things were going great. He was napping every day for 1h45min without fail, would go down without having to be nursed down and would not wake to nurse either. It was heaven! Nights were good too. He would wake once, moan or cry for 10-20 seconds, roll over and go back to sleep. He would then wake to nurse around 5am and go back to sleep until 7am.
It was heaven after 19 months of no sleep with him and no STTN for me during my pregnancy.
The only thing that changed was no more nursing during the night. We still co-sleep and didn't change anything about that.
Then last week hell started. He started waking up after less than an hour of napping crying. I started to nurse him back down again but he would only sleep again for 10 minutes or so. He has also started waking up again at night...often. He usually wakes an hour or so after going to sleep (again) and cries (but not to nurse). I can get him back down by lying with him and shh-ing him.
But around 1am he wakes and screams and kicks. It is terrible. He doesn't usually ask to nurse (but has once or twice -- I tell him neh neh is sleeping). He screams and screams, kicks and thrashes about on the bed. Nothing can calm him down. He doesn't want to be held and sometimes will even get up off of the mattress (on the floor) and want to leave the bedroom, still crying.
He is not teething but I've tried Tylenol before bed just in case. He isn't sick and nothing has changed in his environment. I can't figure out what is wrong.
I am so depressed. I have had no sleep for more than 2.5 years and finally things were looking up only to go back to crap. I don't know what to do. I am so tired already from not sleeping and being pg. I just feel like crying.
Does anyone have any advice for me? I'm sure not (yeah, I'm feeling pessimistic as well) but I am hoping so!
Thank you all ladies.


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## georgiegirl1974 (Sep 20, 2006)

Night terrors maybe? DD had those at his age. She'd freak out and nothing would calm her down. I would have to take her to the living room and turn on the TV to get her to come out of it.

Could he have an ear infection?

I don't really have any advice. DD often has good weeks of sleep and bad weeks of sleep. I can't usually find a connection between what happens during the day and how her night is.

I hope this gets better.

(My DH wont agree to TTC until DD is sleeping through the night regularly.)


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## D_McG (Jun 12, 2006)

sounds like he's in pain maybe? any change in his diet? DS was like that when he was drinking soy milk.


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## babymaggie (Nov 11, 2007)

Don't think it is an ear infection. There is no redness, he isn't touching or pulling on his ears, etc. I haven't changed anything in his diet since the waking started. And he is fine during the day.
He was sensitive to dairy when he was much younger and I had to eat a dairy free diet. He grew out of that a long time ago and has been fine.
I wondered about night terrors but it doesn't seem to fit. *sigh* I just don't know. I thought about not TTC until he was STTN but then I thought that was a risk that I wasn't willing to take since he might not have a sibling until his 18th birthday, lol.
Sometimes I feel like he will never sleep through the night.


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## bdoody11 (Aug 16, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *babymaggie* 
Don't think it is an ear infection. There is no redness, he isn't touching or pulling on his ears, etc. I haven't changed anything in his diet since the waking started. And he is fine during the day.
He was sensitive to dairy when he was much younger and I had to eat a dairy free diet. He grew out of that a long time ago and has been fine.
I wondered about night terrors but it doesn't seem to fit. *sigh* I just don't know. I thought about not TTC until he was STTN but then I thought that was a risk that I wasn't willing to take since he might not have a sibling until his 18th birthday, lol.
Sometimes I feel like he will never sleep through the night.

I know what you mean. I said I wouldn't TTC until my DD slept through the night, but I began to fear that we may never have a second child!

I thought I would chime and let you know that my almost 20 mo. DD and another 20 monther in the Toddler forum are all having some major sleep issues right now. Perhaps this is just a developmental leap for him?


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