Tonight he made it until 10:30 without falling asleep. We have the feeling that we are letting him get overtired before trying to put him to bed, and that is what is causing us so much trouble. Brock will be home alone with him tomorrow night, but if it’s anything like tonight, he’ll still be up when I get home.
We try laying him down just like we do for naps. We give him back his paci every time he spits it out. We take 100 trips from the living room to the bedroom to pat him on the back, tell him night-night, and let him fall asleep. Then the screaming/writhing starts. So we give him Mylicon incase it’s gas pains. We pick him up and rock with him incase he just needs a little more help. He kicks and squirms and screams until we’re so frustrated we have to put him down. We try putting him in his swing. He’ll stay in there for about 15 minutes, and then start screaming again. Swaddle? Worth a try. He just yanks his arms out, mad because we trapped them, and yells some more. So I try nursing him to sleep. He’s calm until ge starts to feel full, and then he starts getting angry – kicking, pinching and biting. I can’t handle that, so I gave to leave. Now his tummy is full, so we try bouncing/rocking him to sleep again. More screaming. By this time, we’ve both given up on having any meaningful alone time, so we just get ready for bed. Ronan is still screaming. I turn the lights on and talk to him, change his diaper, and he starts laughing and talking back. No, this isn’t colic. It’s an angry, overtired baby that can’t release into sleep, and we are at our wits end as to how to help him.
Our first step tomorrow night is to bump “bed-time” up by half an hour.
Crying it out isn’t an option for us, either.
Ugh. This too shall pass. But tonight it feels like forever.
