My 6 month son got shots on Friday and now his sleeping schedule is totally off. He is waking up in the middle of the night for a couple hours or not going to bed hours later than usual (previous bedtime used to be before 7:00pm but has gone down at 11:30pm and 8:30pm the last 2 nights). Even though he is clearly tired (eye rubbing, yawns, crankiness) he just can't seem to go down. He is not sleeping additional hours during the day to make up for the loss of night sleep. I'm pretty sure as the night passes, he's just so tired, he can't go to sleep. Rocking, which has always soothed him is suddenly not soothing to him.
Did anyone's baby's sleep schedule get mixed up after shots too? Is is the shots or maybe just the age? And any sleep advice, other than crying it out?
Thanks, K.
The shots probably have made him feel a little ill and he may be sore at the injection site. Try a little baby Tylenol if it's o.k. with your Pedi to see if he is bothered by the shots. They always messed up my son for about a week or two depending on how many shots he got at once and the type. However - my son was still nursing every 90 minutes all night at 6 months so his "sleep pattern" wasn't affected. ;) Oy!
No real advice here, but the same thing happened to my son after his 4 month shots. It's been two weeks and he just started sleeping a solid chunk at night again, but is waking up early and does not take naps longer than 30 minutes during the day. Before the shots he was sleeping 8 hrs through the night and 2 hour naps during the day. You aren't alone and hopefully this to shall pass!
K.,
No great advise here, just reassurance that you are not alone. My one year old goes through this stage about once every six weeks or so. It will last a few days then she will settle back into her general routine. While your in the middle of it, it seems like it lasts for months. Just try to stick to your normal routine as much as possible so he does not get too overly tired. It will get better! till the next change :)
M.
Awww yes. This exact same thing happened to me at my baby's 2 month, 4 month and 6 month shots. And....I had his shots spread out so he wouldn't get back on track for a month. Rest assured he will get back on track and sleep through the night again. The shots seem to "jack" up their system. He DID eventually get back on track. It might take 2 weeks but I never let him cry it out. If I went in and couldn't soothe him back to sleep (which I could only do once), I would scoop him up, change his diaper and feed him. Like I said this will pass if you can just hang in there and deal with it. I didn't find anything else that helped like staying home so he could take his naps but I did it anyway. About 2-4 weeks and you should be golden. The good news is he shouldn't have another appointment or shots until his 1 year mark. Yay!
I can't remember now if it was after the shots at 4 month or 6 months, but it seemed that my son's (and all the babies in our mom's grup) sleeping pattern changed. Whether it was the shots or just the stage of development--I don't know. For us, it didn't last long and he was soon back to sleeping well. My son is almost 2 now and I've finally learned that every quirk in the road is a phase and, give it a week or two, and it will likely end. Hopefully your son will be sleeping well again soon!
The same thing happened to my daughter after her 6 month shots. She used to sleep for 10-11 hours through the night but she woke up every 3 hours after her shots. It took nearly a month to get her back to sleeping through the night. I made the mistake of nursing her to sleep in the middle of the night, even though I knew she wasn't hungry. We also tried letting her cry it out, but that is hard on everyone.
Like the other person said, just try to stick to your schedule before you had your shots. I think that is what eventually got my daughter to sleep through the night again. But it did take us about a month to get back to sleeping through the night, and we did have to move her bedtime back a few hours since she's now only sleeping 8 hours, rather than 11.
Twenty-seven years later and I still remember this. I couldn't wait for my son's 6th month shots because he slept so well after his 2 month shots. I was hoping that he would take a nice long nap that day! Not! His sleep schedule wasn't as disrupted as your son's, but he barely took a nap, although his night time schedule wasn't as disrupted, he definitely was more wakeful. My son probably weighed about 14 pounds at the time, which is a little low. Perhaps there is something in the vaccine that makes babies edgy.
