10 Month Old Thrashing While He Sleeps

I am interested in the responses you get. My 9-month old daughter is the same! She puts her head down and bulldozes all around the bed/crib to put herself to sleep, and kicks, rolls, and practically tries to do somersaults while asleep! She sleeps in our bed at night and both my husband and I wonder that we are not full of bruises. Usually she is fairly quiet while sleeping, but last night she whined a lot (wondered if teething again) and even stood up and walked for a couple seconds on the bed and then dropped right back into a seemingly deep sleep. I ended up awake for a while wondering about that! She has been walking for a while, so I don't think it is a new-skill issue. If I did not see this post, I would have written my own. You are not alone.

My son who is now 11 was the same way until he was about 7-8 years old. I had talked to the Dr.about this and she said some kids just have night terrors and thrush around and your not suppose to wake them up it is there way of dealing with there dreams. My son when little would sleep with us sometimes too and I know it would be very difficult to sleep as he was all over the place! Hopefully this will pass for your son too.Now he is a good sleeper.I just think it is a part of some kids sleep cycle.Good luck to you and hang in there at least it won't last forever :)

My daughter has always been a very active sleeper as well. Talking, laughing, kicking, slapping, etc...it's all part of her sleeping. I've heard that this is normal for children. Children have vivid dreams they do not understand yet so body actions are important. In my case, my hubby's family has a history of doing all those things at night, even sleep walking, so it doesn't surprize me that my daughter has that sleep pattern as well.

So, maybe start investigating your and your hubby's families sleep habits, perhaps your son got something genetic passed on in which he has similar sleep.

Either way, The dream mode is the good sleep, so if your son is thrashing around, I'd assume it was because he was having a vivid dream...and that's the good sleep, wether he's thrashing, talking, laughing, crying, etc.

I'd be careful about letting him sleep with his siblings though, for fear that he'd wake them up to a slap in the face...which has happend to me on occasion with my active sleeping daughter.

R., this sounds like night terrors and please be very careful about all that you hear and people tell you that have never had a child go through them. Our son started having them at 3 weeks old and stopped having them when he was 18 months old. His were very scary and violent and he would have sometimes 13 a night but he would have them every night for 18 months and most commoly about 7 an night but he woke up at 7 am every morning and a very happy bubbly little boy and as normal as any other child. Here is what we have learned and this may get a little long sorry. We learned a lot from a guy that is reasearching this and has been for some years now. At this time there is no real know cause but it is more than likely nothing you are doing or that he is doing during the day and nothing that he has eaten and on and on but this is what the guys one study is showing, is that kids that have night terrors just can't get their minds to slow down at night so it keeps going along with the body but the child has no idea that it is going on and they are just fine. Then main thing is that you do not wake him up, let him go through it, cause waking him up just is confusing him he has no idea that he is doing it and will not be able to figure out why you are waking him up. And I will tell you that letting him sleep with you is probally a bad idea, you need to keep for the most part things that he can get tangled up in out of harms way like sheets blankets stuffed toys etc and you do need your sleep and he needs his space. For the most part, most kids out grow them some people do have them the rest of there lives but that is rare but it can proceed into sleep walking when they get older. Also this is another thing, you probally don't need to give him anything in the middle of the night like milk etc... This is another thing that is common with night terrors they may look like they are awake and have their eyes open but they kind of just look right through you or like you are not there our son did this all the time but THEY ARE NOT AWAKE... I truly give you all my support and I would never wish this on anyone and it is very hard to go through but hang in there and the best thing that I can offer is let him go through them and just get a monitor that you can turn on and see him I know this is hard but it is really the best way and yes I know tons of people will not believe you or say that what you are doing is crule but remember as long as he is waking up happy and everyting eles seems normal he is fine! Best of luck!!!!

My daycare provider turned me on to the woombie. You might check them out. It restricts movement just enough that he might be able to get a more restful sleep. And they look so cute in them!

http://www.thewoombie.com/

Try swaddling him before you put him to bed. He may resist when you first swaddle him and he may wiggle out of it during the night but it might help get a more restful sleep.

That's probably just the way he sleeps. I have boys who thrash and move around too. It just makes it hard for them to sleep with other people. As long as he doesn't seem overly tired or is waking himself up I wouldn't worry about it. If you are still concerned check out Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's book, "Sleepless in America."

I recently read in Parents Magazine that kids can have night terrors from things that scare them during the day. Loude noises such as slamming doors, people yelling, violent movies or TV that he might be hearing. Think about the noises he hears during the day and try to cut out the ones that may scare him.

Switch his night time bottle to milk instead of formula. Formula is fortified with vitamins and has corn syrup which is a nervous system stimulant. Milk will calm him down and help him to have a restful sleep.

Your 10 month old no longer needs all the extra vitamins in the formula round the clock R., so don't worry about that.

Formula is a substitute for breast milk which is not fortified. Keeping this in mind, you could wean him off of formula once he is eating a lot of whole foods either way and changing his bottle to milk at night will not impact his health in any way.

Swaddle Swaddle Swaddle
I was having the same issue with my baby. I first swaddled her in a blanket but she was getting her hands out so I purchased a Swaddle blanket from BRU!! It worked wonderfully! She has been sleeping through the night ever since:-)