A Friend Posted This in a Group I Am in and Thought I Would Ask More Moms

Sounds like your son was not ready to change to one nap a day. My son, who is 2-1/2 now, took two naps a day for the longest time. At his day care they let the children sleep anytime until they are at least 2. He now takes just one nap, from 12:00-2:00 at day care, but on the weekends he may sleep three hours or more. If he doesn't get enough sleep during the day he does just what your son does - wakes up, cries, has trouble going back to sleep. I would talk to the day care about this issue and see if he can be moved back to the infant class, or if he can take a short morning nap. If this just is not possible, I would try an earlier bedtime at home. I know this will be tough for your husband - mine works late too and misses time with our son. However, you must focus on what is best for your little one and you really need to get your rest as well. Maybe your husband could do something special with your son on the weekends to make up for time missed in the evenings. This is often what my husband does. It absolutely sounds like your sweet boy is not getting enough sleep.

He sounds very overtired, which would explain the manic behavior at night.

I think you have two options: the first is to put him to bed earlier, and let your husband have a nice chunk of time with Oscar alone on the weekends. I'm not being unsympathetic here; I know that dads truly do want to connect with their children. I also have a neighbor with older children (nearly 3 and 5 y.o.) who keeps her kids up to see their dad. They are a screaming wreck in the morning as they head out to kindergarten. If these older kids are having a tough time of it, imagine how hard it would be for a younger child.

The second option is to change care providers. To me, this is the less attractive option, as there would be some huge adjustments for Oscar.

There's an old saying I learned when I started working with kids 19 years ago: Restful days bring restful nights. If he's so incredibly tired, an earlier bedtime will really help. Please understand, too, that this isn't forever. Another year or so, and you'll see that he's got more energy and can stay up longer. By three, they're usually ready to give up their naps, but will usually be offered a nap/rest time in daycare, so then there will be more potential for later evenings.

But for youngest children, I like to keep in mind that we have to often adjust our expectations and schedules to their needs, not ours. And your husband will have a LOT of time in the future to connect very meaningfully with his son. This is a sacrifice on his end, and Oscar is so fortunate to have a father who's interested in spending time with him. And it's a temporary sacrifice. In the end, though, if you are exhausted, something needs to change.

Best wishes,
H.

E.,

When someone has low blood sugar, the blood sugar drops during long hours of no food when sleeping. The body senses that the blood sugar is dropping and in an attempt to maintain blood sugar to the VITAL organ-the brain, it will signal the backup plan- pump out adrenaline from the adrenal gland between 2-3 am.. This will bring up the blood sugar- but it also causes the person to be quite awake and unable to go back to sleep!

The root cause of blood sugar deregulation is low cortisol, this is a hormone made in the adrenal gland that controls the blood sugar and many other body functions. Read this writeup on cortisol:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol

The best way to check for low cortisol is a SALIVA cortisol test (it takes a reading at 8am, noon, 4pm, and 9pm). However it is difficult to do with young children- to get them to spit a whole vial of spit four times a day. Typical general doctors will usually want do a simple morning one time cortisol blood test to check the cortisol levels, but this test really is only accurate if you are SOOO depleted of cortisol you are almost dead (Addisons disease). It does not work for adrenal insufficiency. In fact, it can and usually will be normal or even high at 8am (giving the doctor a false interpretation that everything is ok)only to drop below levels at noon and beyond. The reason for the high morning spike is usually the body trying to raise the blood sugar and get ready for metabolizing the morning meal-or, in the case of Addisons people, the principle is similar to "the lighbulb burns the brightest just before it burns out".

You can get 1% hydrocortisone cream from the store, the kind for skin rashes. This is a manmade cortisol replacement and people with adrenal fatigue can use it as part of their regime.They would put on a small amount at 8am, noon, 3pm. Licorice root is also helpful as it increases the time cortisol is in the body. This is also taken at 8am , noon, and 3pm. But it does raise blood pressure! People with severe adrenal fatigue use this as by that point they usuallu get LOW blood pressure so the herb helps in both respects.

I would suggest , before you use it either of these, you research them. Also try to get the child checked out with the saliva test and get under a doctor's care. You cannot be on the cream when you are taking the cortisol tests. Be aware that MOST general doctors don't have a clue about adrenal fatigue. Even endocrinologists have a hard time accepting that anyone has an issue unless they have it so severe that they are very, very ill. Even then it is unbeleivably dufficult!You can look up adrenal fatigue and hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) online.

Canaryclub.org has the cortisol test withour a prescription at about 100 bucks or so. If you do not know how to interpret it, you can get signed up with the adrenal fatigue bulliten board, the mods can help.
____@____.com

Email me if you have any questions.
I have a 14 yr old daughter who presented with adrenal fatigue at 3 yrs old, who spent her childhood in hypoglycemic states and then in arthritic pain starting at 5, at puberty (when hormones surge) went into full swing advanced adrenal fatigue (looks like chronic fatigue syndrome), but was never diagnosed until 13. I am STILL trying to get the endocrinologist to accept that she is as sick as she is. (adrenal fatigue patients LOOK WELL but are ill inside. Doctors and friends will say "but they don't look sick". Yes- that even comes out of doctor's mouths!The endos in Boise are so overworked with SOOO many patients they will only take you if you have adrenal cancer, otherwise your appt is a year out. Hidious.
Again I suggest you get on the adrenal yahoo loop and tell the moderators about your situation (after you have had labwork done-they will ask you for them).

Be well,
Gail

The answer is very, very simple. He is over tired. Once a person and especially a baby becomes over tired it is very hard for them to sleep peacefully through the night. I can not believe that a daycare would only allow one nap a day for a child before the age of two (and even then I would go on a case by case basis until 3) to only have one nap a day. That is not nearly enough day time sleep for that age. Since there is no way to change the day care then you need to make sure he is going to bed when HE needs to and not when dad wants him to. I know it will be hard for him to accept the decreased bonding time for the good of his son. He needs his sleep. If he was doing better at 6:30 then let him go back to that time. He needs to make up for that sleep he is missing during the day at night. The only other suggestion I can think of would be to try to get him to nap as soon as you bring him home from daycare and then let him be up for a few hours in the evening with his father and adjust his bed time as needed. This could back fire though and you may end up with a child who won't go to bed before 10.

I don't have any advice, as my daughter is 9 months and we are going through a similar issue with her being overly tired now that she is crawling...however I thought I would share that Dr. Sears is a great resources for different issues and has a useful link called medicine cabinet on the home page at www.askdrsears.com. He provides a dosing chart for Benadryl beginning age 1...although he does say not to use it as a sleep aid. Your friend may check with a local health food store to see if there is something natural and safe that may help relax her child for a better night's sleep....right now I'm using the bedtime lotion and massaging my daughters legs and feet while she nurses before bed...that seemed to help last night.

Did the day care not slowly transition him from infant to 1? Once my son turned one it took him/them 6 weeks at lest until he was full time in the 1yr room and they did not even start him on the transisiton until he was more like 14 or 15 months old. I would see if there is anything they can do to readjust him and get things back on track for him. I would be shocked if they just moved him but it appears from your post that they did just that.

Sounds like he just needs that second nap. My son was similar when he switched to the one year old room at his daycare. We convinced them to let him sleep on a mat in the corner in the afternoon. If your daycare won't allow a second nap, I would change daycares. I think that would be less traumatic than what you are going through now. We also needed DS to have a later bedtime than the 5:30 he would fall asleep at without his nap since we would also never see him awake without it.

Sorry you are having trouble. A few things...You gave him benadryl? He is too young to have that. I wouldn't do that again. Very dangerous---especially since you are not using for intended purpose and he is not of age to be using it- As far as easier bedtimes, I think you need to just keep consistent with 7-7:30 bedtime and only go in his room in the middle of the night if he is really restless. If you can, put a cd player in the room with luluby music and play it continuously through the night--he will fall back asleep easier with the music. Hope this helps and good luck. I must say you are very fortunate to have such an easy sleeper--most babies have a greater time going to sleep and some wake several times a night still at your son's age. You should be very thankful! :)

Take care,

M