We now seem to have a once or twice a week ScreamFest that starts at about 1am and goes until 2 or 3 or even 4am. It’s the kind of blood curdling, non-stop scream that makes everyone in the house want to cry. Nothing seems to help other then constant snuggling. And we’ve learned that we cannot, even for a second, think that we can set down the sleeping baby and try to leave his room because he instantly wakes back up and the ScreamFest re-commences.
We have no idea what night it’s going to happen. And more troubling is we have absolutely no idea why it is happening.
We’ve read everything we can think to read. It seems like the ScreamFest could be the result of:
- Afraid of the dark – unlikely, his sound machine has a nightlight on it.
- Nightmares – maybe. But what can we do about nightmares?
- An early/weirdly timed sleep regression – from what I can tell sleep regressions don’t normally present as once a week sleeping problems. So probably not.
- Hungry – he’s not, we’ve tried giving him milk.
- Overtired – but as a kid who loves to sleep, it’s not often that he gets too tired because he just falls asleep if he’s really tired.
- Change in routine – it doesn’t seem to be constantly correlated to a change in his routine, so we don’t think this is it.
- Too much sleep – he’s pretty scheduled in his 7pm – 6am night time sleep and one 1 hour to 1.5 hour nap. If we try to keep him up longer he will just fall asleep mid-play, so I don’t think it’s he’s getting too much sleep.
- Teething – he’s not teething. He has 16 full teeth now, and there is no evidence that his 2 year molars are coming in freakishly early.
So, what do we do, when we have no idea what’s causing the horrific ScreamFest? How do we help him sleep through whatever it is that’s waking him up and upsetting him so much?
I just hate seeing my little guy so upset…
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
For 20 years now Easter has been a reminder of my mom and sisters deaths. I almost do not remember a time in my life when I actually enjoyed Easter. Yet, rationally I know I would have enjoyed it as a kid because we would have spent the day as a family – Easter egg hunt, church, a big family dinner, etc. But somehow it’s like the car accident simply erased everything about Easter from my memory, leaving me with a void of Easter memories.
It’s weird.
Anyways, last year was my first year as a mother, and I made a point to make Easter fun. But let me tell you, celebrating Easter with a young infant, wasn’t all that fun. Really, as much as I tried to make it fun, Little MPB was too young to understand or even care. Yes, I put cute little bunny ears on him (which he hated) and his grandparents bought him an Easter book and a few Easter themed toys (which he sort of looked at before losing interest). And while his older cousins played he simply watched from the comfort of my arms. Truthfully, he just didn’t get it. Which of course was no fault of his, he was just too young.
So now that Easter is here again, I laughed walking through the aisle at a store recently – as much as the modern consumer world wants me to buy all things cute and chocolatey for my kid, Little MPB still isn’t going to get it. I’m not falling into this consumer trap this year, no-way, no-how. Our house will not be decorated with all things bunny and egg. I will not be buying tonnes of chocolate, because I know I will be the one who eats it all. And there will be no Easter egg hunt, as Little MPB just isn’t going to understand it.
But, what I do know about this Easter is that Little MPB will enjoy toddling along with his cousins, and he will probably enjoy a new toy or book from his grandparents. And, I’ll probably stick those old bunny years on his head again, and he will probably hate them just like he did last year.
And that, will be more then enough to make my heart happy this Easter.
.
Wishing everyone a weekend filled with love and laughter.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
My Perfect Breakdown 