Thank you all for your responses to my sign language question. I am excited to get started on that. My other concern is my extremely restless baby. He is 1yrs old and has not been sleeping peacefully for a couple weeks now and it just seems to be getting worse. He is constantly waking himself up and tossing and turning. His head usually ends up where is feet are. He flops around and kicks his legs. Has anyone had this problem? He has recently started walking and I've heard that can be related but this seems a bit extreme. (Or I could just be a bit paranoid.) I am concerned that he doesn't like to take is naps either. When I try to lay him down during the day he usually takes a good hour to fall asleep. Needless to say, no one is sleeping well in our house. Please let me know if anyone has experience with this. Thank you!!
Thank you so much. I am relived to hear this is normal! I can't believe I didn't even think to double check the temperature... I appreciate all of your responses and look forward to trying them out!!
It could be teeth. My one year old is getting 4 teeth right now and not sleeping great. He is also all over the bed.
K
Ashley,
My son was never a good sleeper. Even as an infacnt he only slept 9 hours if I was lucky. My husband and I had many sleepless nights. He is 5 now and sometimes he will be awake at midnight and be up at 7. I talked to his doctor and he explained that some people do not produce enough melatonin which is the chemical that tell us to sleep. He told me to buy it amd see if he would take it. It actually works.. really works. He was 3 when we started giving it to him. We do not give it to him every night just those times he just really needs to sleep. You can tell by his eyes that he needs to sleep and he just can't. It is very inexpensive and a natural herb you and by at the grocery store. I have not experienced any side effects in 2 years and sometimes I take them when I can't sleep. Maybe you could ask your doctor about it and the dose.
Best of luck! N.
My oldest wasn't a good sleeper from birth. They're all different in that way (just like everything else!) She actually stopped taking naps all together at 9 months. I would put on soft music and do something quiet with her so her little body got a bit of relaxation but there was NO way she was sleeping during the day!!!! She was also very restless at night and I found that massaging her right before bed helped most nights. She would still toss a bit and wake up occasionally, but it did seem to help overall. He'll probably grow out of it in time! Mine's in 5th grade now and getting her OUT of bead is the issue:) Good luck!
I would have to say that my 4 kids did similar things at that age and I know my girlfriend just commented that her daughter started to be restless and not a good napper for a while right around the time she started to walk. I had been told that walking is such a big deal that until they get comfortable with it it impacts their sleep. They just can't get it off their mind. When they finally tackle it then the sleeping gets better. Just enjoy every minute.
So, since you say you lay next to him, I have to ask, is he still in a crib? If not, I would recommend a crib. IMO, 1 is too young to be in a bed. But, maybe I am just misinterpreting this.
Hi Ashley,
My nearly-1-year-old does the same thing at night. He's like a little helicopter rotor in the bed, and even though we have a king-size, it only just fits him and me! Because we co-sleep, his frequent waking doesn't matter so much because we both get back to sleep pretty quickly. My poor husband sleeps in the guest bed but he knows it won't be for that long, in the scheme of things.
Naps are good for us. In the mornings I put our son in a Moby wrap (a soft cloth carrier) and walk until he's asleep (now that I do it the same time every morning it doesn't take long), then I sit at the computer with him asleep on my chest and get some work done. In the afternoons I put him in his stroller and we walk up and down in the shade outside, he goes to sleep, and I settle us both in the shade and read until he wakes. He naps at 9am and 2pm and nearly always goes for 45mins-1hr at both.
I know a lot of people say that children need to learn to sleep on their own and that helping them is starting bad habits, but I figure that kids also need to learn to walk and talk, and no-one's daft enough to try to force them before they're ready. It seems to be mainly in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand that this "make-child-sleep-on-own" thing is made central to discipline, but the rest of the world gets by pretty well without it. Sorry, I'm beginning to rant. It's up to you! Good luck!
Hi Ashley,
Your letter made me smile, because our 3 yo was like that at one.
He'd make all kinds of noises, even wimpering, half the night, and I'd get him up in the morning, and he'd be curled up in a "nest" of his blankets.
Now, he's an extremely active, and happy, boy. Nothing bad ever came of it, it was just his way of sleeping at that time.
Big smiles!
T
Hi Ashley,
Babies' sleep patterns are disturbed by several things: Growth spurts, physical milestones such as learning to walk, teething or other constant or recurring pain, changes in dietary needs such as eating more solids. There are others that may not be as common such as illness, ear infection, etc..
Many mothers don't realize that if their baby is trying to learn to walk (which often happens at this age) that their baby is totally focused on this. Even during sleep, they are focused on this. Mothers find their babies walking around the crib in the middle of the night.
Babies are also getting upper teeth around a year old which can cause mucus in their sinuses, pain and disturbed sleep.
Some babies are just restless sleepers.
It has gotten warmer over the past few weeks, could it be that his room is just too warm for him to sleep? Everyone in my house tosses and turns if it's too hot in thier rooms, including my husband and I. I make sure the rooms are cool when the kids to to sleep or if they are restless or can't get to sleep. I find that 95% of the time cooling down the room takes care of the problem.
I wouldn't worry. What you're describing sounds completely normal. My 2 yr old son is a restless sleeper too. He must change positions all night long. I also hear him making a lot of noises and even talking in his sleep sometimes. He often wakes during the night and will talk to his teddy bear or "sing" for a half hour or so and go back to sleep. If memory serves, he's done this probably since he was around a year old.
He never has been a good napper either but he responds well to a flexible schedule. He expects that he will go to his crib for a nap everyday whether it's 11am or 1pm. Even if he never gets "tired" for a nap, I still put him in his crib so he can have some quiet time. If he's tired, he'll go to sleep, and if not he'll quietly entertain himself. I have read that young children can get overstimulated and that a little time to themselves can be a positive thing. Don't worry too much if your son is taking an hour to fall asleep as long as he's not fussing the whole time.
I find it helpful to run a small fan for white noise whenever I put him down and at night the subtle noise helps me to sleep through his talking too. I also make sure that the room is a comfortable temperature and that he's had something to eat so he won't wake prematurely because he's hungry. Your son sounds like a typical toddler to me. =)
There are homeopathic remedies that might help. Look in the kids homeopathic section at Sprouts or Whole Foods.
If you discover that it is related to something like teething, walking, temperature, etc. You might want to look deeper into homeopathics and see if there is a remedy that relates to both (like, teeting and restlessness together).
If it doesn't clear up easily, try seeing a "classical" homeopath. I say all of this because my son went through this around one and the remedy prescribed my the homeopath helped so much. The whole family sleeps better and that makes a difference in everyone's life!!
B.
