what do you do with your babies at night?
hello,
i've done this before with my now nearly 4 year old girl, but it is hitting me hard at the moment... my 1 year old boy has been a reasonably good sleeper, nothing crazy just a typical baby, good days and bad... he has self settled from a young age... he usually wakes once in the night for a bottle, not a huge deal... however lately i have been having bouts lasting 3 or 4 hours in the middle of the night where he just won't settle...
he has issues with constipation and i found switching him from cows milk back to formula has helped, as he was often up in the night due to needing a poo, and it generally making him unsettled...
i am not sure what is continuing to cause it, i think maybe something in his diet, but i suppose thats not really my question... my question is more on how to deal with it... the only thing that will appease him is for me to carry him around for seemingly hours on end while my eyeballs are popping out of my head. i have a playschool dvd he loves, and he did used to sit on my lap and relax and watch that in the middle of the night, which was good for me as it meant i could rest too, but lately if i even attempt to sit on the couch, he goes mental and cracks it and arches is back and screams causing me to have to walk around carrying him.... and he is a BIG BOY. heavy.
what do others do with their babies when they are up in the night with something distressing them... am i mad to even consider putting a dvd on to distract him or get some rest...? its not realistic for me to carry him around trying to settle him, what else can i do? i have tried leaving him in this cot, he cried for an hour last night then i gave up... i have tried him in my bed, which did work at one stage but now no good, he won't lie down just cries and tries to get out, i have tried rubbing his back in his cot etc, and have tried laying on a mattress in his room....
the only thing that works is the charade of me getting him up, walking around the lounge for a while, maybe putting a dvd or some music on, then trying him back in his cot, where he cries, then we repeat the process several times lasting a few hours until finally he settles miraculously in his cot having me done nothing different than the previous few attempts... i gave him panadol last night at 2am, he eventually settled at 4am, i can't conclude definitively that it helped or not...
so yeah back to my original question, what do you do with your babies when they won't sleep in the night? i really need some tips or advice. i know it won't last forever, but in the meantime how do i deal with this...?
thank you :-)