Okay, wise mamas, help me out here. So I am totally at my wits end with my babe and nighttime. I’m sleep deprived and am getting resentful and cranky, and I hate it. Let me give you a typical night: he’s almost 11 months old, and we have a pretty set bed time routine. At around 6-6:30 he has dinner in his high chair, at around 7-7:30 he has a bath (not every night, usually every other unless he’s particularly dirty), then around 8 or when he starts to show signs of sleepiness he’ll get a bottle and either me or DH feeds him and he’ll go to sleep drinking the bottle. Of course there’s playtime and all in between everything, letting him get his energy out and spending as much time with us before bedtime. Anyways, once he’s good and asleep, we put him in his crib and he’s usually down for a while.

Now, here’s the fun part. For the past 2 or 3 weeks, every night between 2 and 3 am, he wakes up. It’s almost like clockwork. There have been a few earlier nights, but for the most part it’s 2-3. He’ll start fussing and crying, so I’ll go in and pick him up and try to rock him back to sleep. Used to he’d go back to sleep just fine in my arms, but when I’d try to put him down, he’s not having it. Then I could put him in the swing and he’d swing off to dreamland. Now, he won’t even go to sleep in my arms anymore, he’ll just lay there awake. Try to put him in the swing, he’ll start crying. He just wants to be held and awake. Try to put him in bed with us, and he turns into a flippin jumping bean, all over the damn place, rolling, crawling, scratching, kicking, etc. I’m sure at this point he would happily engage in play, but I’m not too keen on starting a 3 am wake up routine. I’ve tried giving him a bottle, hoping that will lull him into a nice, tummy filled slumber. But no, he’ll drink it all then stare at me adoringly while I rock him. After about and hour, or much more, he will finally succumb and let me put him the swing and eventually go to sleep. Sometimes with a fight and a few waking up and crying episodes, sometimes just fine until morning.

So, what gives?!?!?!? I mean, I know he’s been teething, but this isn’t waking up in pain thing, I’ve been through that. This has been going on much longer. I know that when babies start doing new things like crawling and walking and such that it can mess up their nights. Do we just have to ride it out? Is this something that we need to fix now or it will continue? I would probably be able to handle this better if I didn’t have to drag myself out of bed and haul off to work the next day. I don’t know, sleep deprivation just seems easier to handle while still in your p.j.s at home than in real clothes while sitting at a desk. I’m thinking maybe we shouldn’t go in there at all when he first wakes up, just let him put himself back to sleep? Maybe we’re waking him up too much by going in? But he’ll just start freaking out if we don’t go in, and I’m not down with CIO, just doesn’t seem to work anyways. Sorry, this is horribly long and whiny, but I just don’t know what to do. I guess there may be nothing to do until he grows out of this phase. Ugh.