Lately, the little man has been having what I like to call "morning meltdowns." They don't happen every single morning and they aren't all exactly the same. (Some mornings aren't as dramatic as others, and some are even very normal and uneventful.) But, these meltdowns have been going on for a while. If I had to guess I'd say we've been witnessing them for at least a few weeks. For some reason, he just seems to be more moody and cranky in the mornings. Little things upset him and he has mini-meltdowns where he cries and whines and cries some more. Thankfully, we haven't had any major tantrums..... yet. I know that they'll come one day, but so far he doesn't throw himself down or kick and scream or any of that good stuff.
This morning he woke up around 7:30 while I was still drying my hair and trying to get ready for the day. I could hear him whining on the monitor and then eventually he started the "maaa-maa, ma-ma, maaa-ma" so I decided to go ahead and get him up. Whenever he wakes up before I'm quite ready, I just let him play in the pack-in-play for a few minutes until I finish up. That's what I did this morning and things were fine, until we headed to the kitchen to fix his milk. All I had to do was get the milk out of the fridge, pour it into his sippy cup, and hand it to him. Well, before we even made it into the kitchen he started crying the most pitiful cry like he just couldn't bear to wait another second for his milk.
Then he reached his little hands up as high as he could just begging and pleading for his milk.
Then he gave me this pitiful look when he noticed I was making his picture.
A little later on, after he finished his milk he decided to have another meltdown. I'm not sure what triggered it this time. He was just wanted to be right up under me and eventually wanted to be held. (And being held on the couch doesn't count. He wanted to be held walking around while I did things around the house.) In this picture he is holding onto my legs and crying once again. Like I said before, I'm not talking major tantrums or anything. He's just over-sensitive and extra moody on most mornings. Thankfully, once we make it to breakfast we're usually in the clear.
Now, for the bedtime battles. We have been having some issues with getting the little man to sleep at night pretty much since we got home from vacation. The very first night we were back at home we were able to break him of falling asleep while being held. So that's the good news. He does not require being held to fall asleep like we had to resort to in Florida. Whew, so glad that's not an issue.
But, the issue now is that he's having trouble falling asleep at night. It's really strange because I haven't had any issues at all with naptimes during the day. He lets me lay him down awake and leave the room and then he falls asleep all by himself. Bedtime is a different story. It doesn't seem to matter who does the bedtime routine, Terrell or me, he is still having trouble with settling down and falling asleep. We haven't changed a single thing about the bedtime routine either. Before vacation he was so predictable and reliable every night. We gave him his bath, gave him his milk, read a few books, rocked for just a minute, put him in his crib (wide awake), left the room and he was asleep in no time. Everything has stayed the same except that now we can't leave the room without him crying after just a couple of minutes. We decided that instead of picking him up when we go back in, we should just sit in the room until he gets settled and sleepy, and then try to leave. Lately, that's been working off and on. Sometimes one of us still has to go back in again because he starts crying and it just gets worse and worse. But sometimes he lets us leave and we hear him moving around, making noises, etc. for several minutes before he eventually falls asleep (way past his bedtime) or starts crying again.
The biggest thing we've both noticed is that he will not go to sleep while one of us is in the room with him. He either lays there awake the whole time trying to get comfortable or stands up and walks around the crib playing. When we're in there, it's almost like we're a distraction to him and he can't fall asleep. Some nights we are back and forth... in his room, out of his room 3 or 4 times. Some nights it only takes one of us going back in once. It's hard to know what to do and what's best. On one hand, he's really struggling with falling asleep and having one of us in there keeps him from crying (uncontrolable sobs) and helps him get settled most of the time. But on the other hand, he won't fall asleep with us in there (which we're kind of glad about because we don't really want to have to stay with him until he falls asleep because that bad habit could last for years).
My ideas so far are eliminating his morning nap, making it a part of our routine to stay in his room a few minutes after laying him down, or pushing back his bedtime just a little. That's all we've come up with and we haven't tried anything new just yet. We may attempt one of these next week after we get past the weekend. Guess we'll see how things go....
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