My seven month old cries in her sleep. She is super chill during the day and she goes to bed easily. She has slept through the night a few times. But now she cries in her sleep once or twice a night until I feed her. She only wakes up when she realizes that she is being fed. Usually, she cries and I wait for a bit and then pick her up and BF her. Otherwise, she will cry and cry. I don’t know if I should let her cry it out, since I don’t even know if she is conscious of what she is doing.
Keep feeding her and being there for her when she wakes in the night. She is just a baby and needs her mommy there for her to love and cuddle her. I have 3 precious-ones and they all went through the same thing, and grew out of it eventually! Although they still, occasionally have bad dreams, and yes Mommy or Daddy are always there to comfort them.
M.
my son is 13 months old and he still cries in his sleep occasionally. He has been doing it since he was tiny. I asked my dr about it and said not to worry about it. I still do though. I usually try to wake him up so that he doesn't cry anymore. It is so sad. I'm sorry your baby is doing it too.
My son is now 19 mths and have been doing that since 6 mths. When he started I told the doctor and he said "lets talk about it when he's 1 yr old" - because then he can attibute it to having bad dreams. Which I didnt like.
He cries out like he is in pain. And he tosses and turns. And he is DEAD tired. Before my son was a year I would wake up and feed him milk with a lil cereal so he'd stay a lil full. But I stopped that when he turned one.
I would wake up at every sound because I was "used" to doing so until one day I was so tired, I just slept right through his crying and he went back to sleep. Who knew? She is going to start to expected it when she should start sleeping the whole night through.
Before I put him to bed I give him a warm bath. I burn lavender or vanilla oils. I give him a massage, read him a story and put on relaxing music, usually symphony with warm milk. But he still wakes up crying some nights. Maybe she is teething.... or gas or bad dreams might be contributing. I would give my son chamamile tea (more water though) and teething tablets or oragel and pat him back to sleep........
My Daughter did the same thing! Still does and she is 8! I did the feeding, picking up and all of that too but none of it worked I just ended up with a tired over fed baby! LOL! So I put a little lullaby gadget in the crib (The one with the lights and the fish bowl type of stuff) the music setting didn’t really sooth her, so I saved that for when she got a little older. What did work as an infant was water, or nature sounds. She seemed to be more relaxed hearing some kind of noise so I put a little CD player next to the crib and got some nature soothing night time CD's and that did the trick for the most part. Every once and a while she would whimper and squirm and I would just pat her back and rub her and off to dream land she would go. Have you tried a nice relaxing lavender lotion massage before bed time? A warm bath and soothing lavender massage WAS A LIFE SAVER for me! She would go to sleep so peacefully after the bath and massage.....give it a shot! SO WORTH IT! They have some great bedtime bath products out there now! Hope I helped....don't worry your baby is FINE!
Peace~Love~Light
V.
Poor little thing! I would do what the other lady said. Rub her back to reassure her, even is she is sleeping it should work.
She should be sleeping through the night now without feedings anyway.
it could be teething...
but i think it is probably night terrors. My 3-year old has had them since I can remember. I live in Fernley too. My doctor, Pat colleti, in reno, told me that night terrors are caused by overstimulation during the day. Don't worry--not your fault, it's just the child's personality of the way they take things in. That, and also many children who have night terrors aren't great nappers. I don't know if your child naps but mine does not and has never been good at them. The doctor says if you have a hard time waking them up (which is usually the case), hold a cold, wet cloth to their face.
have you tried to just go in and pat her back and shish her until she stops? long shhhhhhh noises like she's in a car and maybe even jiggling her a little like she's in a car. If that doesn't work, instead of feeding her, try just picking her up and rock her through it.
Hi W.,
My son did the same thing, he still tends to do it from time to time and he's 19 months now. I let him cry it out, which only lasted about less than a minute or so. I never fed him. I only would go into him if the crying was like screaming. Most of the time when he cried he would find his pacifier and then just lay back down. Now he rarely does it. I also found that if I went in and woke him up it was harder to put him back down. I still have NO idea why he does it or why kids do it in general, if you find out let me know! So I guess what my personal opinion would be is to let her cry it out for a bit (probably no longer than 5 minutes, I'm not really a believer of letting little ones cry it out longer than that) then you can go in there and rock her and soothe her. I also wouldn't breast feed her, she's old enough to go through the whole night and the longer you feed her now in the night the more she will expect it when she's older. Hope this helps and good luck.
sounds like night terrors. my daughter has them, too. When she was your daughter's age, they were exactly like you describe and for us, they got worse (hopefully they won't for you). Do a little research on www.babycenter.com. According to it and my pediatrician, they are a normal part of neurological development (though a bit mysterious). If your daughter seems like she's asleep but has her eyes open and is screaming and flailing around for no reason, it's probably night terrors. I know you don't want to hear that - I sure didn't. I hate the thought of her being that scared, even in her sleep. But, she will thrash around and I've even seen her get on all fours and arch her back and lunge forward... like she was a baby tiger fighting something off. So bizarre and disturbing. It seems to make it worse to handle her. What I do now is stand by the crib and turn her sea turtle/aquarium light on. She will slowly come out of it and act like nothing happened, look at me and say, "Hi." Or "Milk?" It's very weird, but apparently normal for a lot of kids. It turns out that my brother had them too when he was a baby. Hope this helps. All the advice says not to try to comfort or wake them and to let it run its course. It feels better to me to sit by her crib and gently shush or turn on her aquarium like I said.
Does she use a paci? If not, you may want to try one just at night- if she has slept through the night odds are good she's ready to do it regularly, and if she's not waking up all the way she's probably not hungry. If she doesn't use one and you don't want to start one, try a bottle of water or just rocking (or better yet, just pat her back while she's still in the crib) instead of feeding her. Now is the WRONG time to get her in the habit of eatting to go back to sleep. However, if your gut tells you that she is really hungry, or if you have tried everything else for at least three nights in a row and they haven't worked, feed her!
W.,
You brought back memories for me!
My advice is to do what works for you. Every child is different in their needs, as is every parent. You will probably get lots of advice from one spectrum to the other. The bottom line is that you know your child better than anyone. Go with your mothering instinct.
Many will say to let her "cry it out" and many will say that that is cruel. I tried it with both my babies (now 10 and 6). It did not work for us - me or them. I did rocking and/or breast feeding.Eventually they found their way to sleeping through the night. My daughter was over a year, but no sleep complications now at all. Both kids are a breeze at bedtime.
Trying new things is great but the bottom line is whatever works work- Do what feels right and know eventually this stage will pass.
Good luck!
Could he be teething? Sometimes babies do cry in their sleep while they are dreaming too....
My son cries out in his sleep a lot. It never lasts more than a couple of minutes and is more of a moan or whine. At first I always went to him and picked him up but soon realized that it actually made him more upset. He was actually still fully asleep. I think every child is different but after a lot of trial and error unless he is crying hard or sits up in the bed I let him work it out. I found that since he was still asleep it was more scary for him to be picked up because he didn't know what was going on. Don't hesitate to ask your ped. Sometimes that is the only thing that makes me relax.
