as cute as the little man is, i'm almost to break down point with his crazy crying sprees. i should give some background just to catch you up. he is an AMAZING sleeper. at night. typically, i put him to bed around 7:30 or 8, i'll wake him up to feed him at about 11:00 and then he sleeps soundly until about 8:00. however, when naptime comes around, i basically want to kill something. not him. but sometimes it's close.
screaming would be an understatement for what he does. its the blood-curling, "i'm in pain", "my life is awful", people who hear it think you're torturing your child scream. however, i am positive that none of those things occur. he's clean, fed, extremely but not overly tired. and he's just mad. as soon as i put him in his crib he screams.{we've also tried our bed, the couch, the stroller, same result}10 minutes later.... he calms down and konks out.... 30 minutes later... he wakes up ticked about something, begins screaming again and nothing can calm him down. i've tried just about everything: picking him up, rocking him, singing to him, reading books, going for walks, nursing him, giving him toys, but i've got NOTHING. it'll be a good hour or so before he recovers. and then what do you know? it really should be nap time again. the word HATE does not even cover how much i HATE nap time.
not only does he need a waaaaay longer nap than he's getting {we've been trying to work on taking longer naps, since he'll try to take about 5 20 minute naps throughout the day, which are kind of annoying when trying to accomplish things during the day}but i need to figure out a successful way to break his screaming thing. cuz it's going to drive me over the edge. i will say that i've come to ignore it a lot better than in the beginning. i would just sit there and cry with him the first time or two cuz i had no idea what was wrong. but now i just think he likes to scream. like he's dying. when he's not. frustration.
please help.
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ReplyDeleteJacob & Clarissa said...
Unfortunately, the best advice I have is to remember that it's a stage he's going through and he will grow out of it eventually. That being said, have you tried driving around? I've also heard that putting him in the carseat on top of the dryer has the same effect. I tried that once and it worked well. Just remember that sometimes they are going to cry and when there's nothing you can do about it, try your best not to stress out about it. Sometimes it's ok to let him cry in his crib while you go relax. Sometimes it's necessary!
You know you are going to have LOTS of different advice to try right? ha ha because everyone thinks they have the answer (including me!) HA HA!
ReplyDeleteOkay how many nas is he getting a day? It still should be at least two a day. Adam (11 months old)wakes up at 7 nas at 9-11 and then naps again 1-3 and goes to sleep at 7. I'll bet Zak's would be something similar.
But Anthony used to do this too and what worked with him was putting him "down" for a nap in his bed with some toys to play with about 30 minutes before him actual nap time. Put him in there and LEAVE THE ROOM. My boys both learned to put themselves to sleep because they would get totally knocked out from playing by themselves.
Try it! Good luck!
I'd second what your other two posters said. I wasn't ever successful in getting my kids to nap very well but my son and daughter-in-law have done and EXCELLENT job with their first daughter who sometimes puts herself to bed but most of the time just goes to bed without protest when you tell her it is nap time. My guess is that they did the same thing Alyssa said to do.
ReplyDeleteMarilyn Bennett