Why does my 8 month old scream when tired?

[Renee_AW]

My 8 mth old DS screams when he is tired. He starts screaming after the yawns & eye rubbing and when we are heading to bed. He screams while putting on his sleeping bag, while I am cuddling him, when in bed & being comforted and can do so for up to an hour. He does this for my husband also. He does it when we are out & he gets tired too & there is no way to comfort him.

He has done it almost his whole life except for a short period between 6-7 mths where he self settled for most day sleeps but still screamed for night sleeps.

We use routine, we don't leave him to cry for more than a minute & comfort him until he is very calm or asleep.

The problem is I am at the end of my ability to deal with it. I was rocking him in my arms crying this morning & trying to comfort him to the sound of my sobs. I don't know what to do.

I don't understand why he finds going to sleep so awful & wish I could change that for him.

[jackrose]

It is a horrible sound to hear, nothing worse than having your little one so upset and be unable to comfort...and when it is ongoing it can undo the best of us...

Maybe he is overtired and screaming is his release of tension.

If you can, try to put him down for sleeps when he shows the first signs of being tired. Way before yawning and rubbing eyes, look for things like him crawling over to you after happily playing by himself for a while. Becoming clumsy is another one that is easily missed. I have found that if I catch these early signs i can get DD down much easier.

X

[Roryrory]

I'm with Jackrose - often with babies, by the time they yawn they are over-tired (like those ads for Gatorade - if you're thirsty you're already dehydrated). There is a really good book which uses gentle methods called "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" by Robyn Pantley. From memory it suggests keeping a diary of your babies sleep and behaviour patterns so you can try to see some common threads in their reactions. Kinda like you would with a newborn - try to watch him and learn what he is trying to communicate. I know with my kids they have all been different, with Rose now I know when she gets glassy eyed she is tired. She rarely yawns if ever. If I let it get past that stage she starts laughing and being really animated, but it is a pretty slippery slope to her being really jittery (to the point where she almost shakes at noise and stimulation).
Poor love you will get some relief soon - if there is one constant with babies it is that they are always changing HTH

[BellyBelly]

I'm also in agreeance - you have to get the sleep routine going you see those first signs of tiredness, he definitely sounds overtired. That said, even Pinky McKay would support some parents who would follow the cues, but the babe would still scream for a bit then sleep. So focus on the cues and see how that takes you.

Baby Cues - What Is My Baby Saying?

[Renee_AW]

It is possible he is overtired as he can be up for 3.5 hours & not show any signs of tiredness. Only sometimes he yawns, rubs his eyes or pulls his ears or he sometimes gets grizzly - not all of the time which makes it difficult to know when to put him to bed.

Sometimes I just take a chance & read him some books & then he will start to yawn (this is what happened today after 3 hours awake). it took 35 mins to go to sleep.

I don't understand though how I got this right for about a month & now I would get it wrong for every sleep?

[Renee_AW]

It also upsets me a lot that after 8 months with my beautiful miracle baby I may not even understand the simple need for sleep. If I am missing this what else am I missing?

[BellyBelly]

Babies change their patterns all the time! He may also be going through a wonder week - you might want to look it up. It's a brilliant book! But it's not about you not knowing what you should know. We don't know this stuff anymore, as we don't grow up communally and see our mothers and others raise their children, we don't participate and we don't help... because society is so very different to how it was planned! So therefore we don't learn and beat ourselves up when we don't know...

Be kind to yourself and get onto Pinky McKays work (loads of her articles on BB on the main site) who does lots of stuff with sleep and cues. Good luck!

[Renee_AW]

Thanks Kelly, I have read lots of Pinky McKay & have her book Sleeping Like a Baby. I will look at it all again.

You are absolutely right about community & with a baby who screams so much when tired it is very difficult to get involved with other Mums when most activities are around sleep time. We went to Mummy Group yesterday which started at 11am but due to DS sleep we didn't arrive until just after 12. It was at someones house & they were in the back garden. I stood at the fence shouting 'hello' etc for about 5 mins before giving up. I didn't have anyones phone no. with me either. Totally deflated we drove to the beach for a coffee....but I couldn't sit & relax because I felt bad about having DS contained for his entire awake time. A very isolating experience.

[JLeigh29]

Oh Renee, I just want to give you a huge hug. I totally see where you're coming from and agree with the pp's that he sounds overtired.
My MG is at 11am too and we rarely make it before 12pm, then everyone leaves because their bubs are due their nap and DS and I are still raring to go. I would love to just chat and sit sometimes but often feel like I haven't had a chance. That said, MG keeps me sane!
DS is always tired after a max 2.5 hours awake time in the morning. He has about 3 hours awake time in the middle of the day, then about 3 hours before bed. If I leave it too late he gets grizzly too. He does the classic "can't play on my own, need Mummy cuddles" manouvre when tired and that is when we usually read a book then head off for a nap. That said, he'll often play in his cot quietly for 1/2 hour before he goes to sleep and he never used to do that (until just before Christmas, if he didn't fall asleep pretty much straight away, he'd grizzle and then cry).

[Renee_AW]

You were all right. I have been keeping DS up way after he is tired. Although he still cries and can take more than 30 mins of comforting before sleep he does not scream so it is not so distressing.

I have worked it out. I was shown a sleep/settle technique & have the 'book'. It is a very gentle technique & is based around baby & comforting when you need to & as much as you need to. In the book it gives guides as to how long a babies of certain ages usually stay up for, for 6-12 mths it says 2.5 to 3 hours. So, one morning DS stayed up for 3 hours....I was amazed & very happy because if he could stay awake for 3 hours that would mean we didn't need the third sleep of the day which usually consisted of half an hour of crying before getting DS up and carrying on with the day.

On I went. If he yawned at 2 hours I just told myself & DH that he couldn't possibly tired, he can stay up for 3 hours (it suited me). On I went with that belief. Wow, I feel so selfish. Now I have woken up with your kind suggestions & realised that DS can stay up for 3 hours some times but not all of the time. Sometimes he is tired after 2 hours & needs to go to bed.

I can't believe I took the book so literally & wasn't paying attention to DS. I know it is not the technique's problem, it is very gentle & basically just gives scope for routine....stories, sleep bag, sleep song, bed, sleep words, comfort when needed.

I always thought I would be an intuitive Mummy but somewhere along the way my own selfishness stepped in.

DS is calling...after a beautful 90 minute sleep for which he self-settled..the first time in months!

[jackrose]

Wonderful!!

I can understand exactly what you are talking about, I made similar mistakes with my first and it was only when I was shown a sleep cues video at my MCH that I grasped the concept of my little one saying to me clearly "I am tired mummy" very clearly! Before that I had missed the subtle tired cues and fit her in with my routine too.

Don't be too hard on yourself about it, there is so much different information shoveled at us mothers and we don't have the benefit of growing up watching babies to learn how to look after us. Our intuition works well enough but can be clouded by sleep deprivation and other's advice. You have done a beautiful job with your baby as you continue to strive to work it out and get it right and your DS cannot ask for more than that. THAT is what makes a wonderful parent. x

[JLeigh29]

Oh Renee, I just want to give you another huge hug! Well done! You sound so happy, and rightly so!

I forgot to say that DH and I turned up to our very first mchn session with 2 1/2 week old DS, who'd been awake for 6 hours and (proudly) told the health nurse he must be one of those rare babies who doesn't need to sleep again after an hour of awake time as he'd been up for 6 hours and was fine adn often stayed up more than 10 hours straight! She was very nice about it and gently told us she thought it was time he slept and we told her he wouldn't, she told us he should and we said 'good luck' and handed him over! She finally got him to sleep after 45 mins then calmly showed us a video about tired signs and how much more easily babies settle if they're put down tired rather than overtired.... and I went home and cried that I was so stupid as to miss all those signs and what a crappy mother I was going to be with no parental instincts whatsoever! I hate it when people say 'trust your instincts' because it's not flamin' obvious sometimes until someone says it (and even then you miss it, cos I'd read the books and notes before that day and still didn't know!).

Little ones are tough nuts to crack and they just love to mix things up for us (lull us into a false sense of security before changing the goalposts again ) I hope things continue to improve with DS.