The Regression.

I'm not really quite sure what's going on in little Ady's world. But....for the past almost 2 weeks, her sleeping patterns have taken a huge turn for the worst. I may have a 12 1/2 month old, but I might as well have a 12 day old baby girl. Which, by the way, I do desperately miss. I miss waking up with her. I knew what to do then...feed her. Now...I'm stumped.


It's a good thing I've managed can get by on little sleep. Because, for the past 14 nights I don't think I've slept more than a total of 3 hours consistently. Sleepy mommy. (And I"m willingly taking any Starbucks giftcards you'd like to share :)) But, what's wrong with Ady?

I can't really remember exactly what it was that started these late night screaming escapades. But, they're painful to hear. It's a screaming, ear piercing, heart breaking, cry. She's on whole milk now and Prevacid still. I don't think that's the issue, since she's happy during the day. For the first several nights, she found relief laying in our bed. They would start about 2-3 am and then she'd be up at 6:30 with us. The problem is....Ady sleeps worse in our bed. She is incredibly sensitive to light or sound. If a dog shakes, a cell phone alarm goes off, you roll over heaven forbid, she's up. So, I have not been a fan of her sleeping with us, as much as I love to hold her. I know it's not best, but what else do you do when you have a screaming baby? How can I tell when it's just normal seperation anxiety awakenings and when it's something painfully wrong? I must have missed the chapter in the Parent's Manual :)

Then...she started these screams earlier, around midnight. Which led her back into our bed even earlier. Are you with me here? Ady has been losing roughly 2 hours or more of sleep every night for 2 weeks. That's a lot of sleep. And, nap time is suffering too.


.....my once very good scheduled napper has regressed. Sigh.....She's been getting 40 minute naps again. And she wakes up screaming. I'm at a loss at what's wrong. She is getting a mouth, and I mean and entire mouth full of teeth! Her top two are in, looks like 2 more up there coming, as well as her molars. I've heard those can be painful. Is this what it is? I'm giving her Tylenol off and on. I don't really notice a difference. Anything else I should try?

Last Sunday we pulled into church at our regular time for 8:30 service. Ady had another sleepless night and she had fallen asleep in the car. I figured she must have a bug, and I told Joseph to go on in and get a seat and I'd just drive around a minute and decide what to do with her. I knew she wasn't going to the nursery; knew something wasn't right. I hadn't so much let him out the door, then she opened her eyes and vomited profusely. At first, I was thinking it was spit up, but as I watched her in the rearview mirror, I saw that something was not right. As I'm panickly trying to find a parking spot in church just so I can stop, she continued on. Once I found one, I immediately tried to catch Joseph. I knew there was no way I was going in there with her. Luckily, I reached him and he came out to help me. I'll spare you the details, but it was a 2, really needed it to be a 3, man job to clean up. Poor baby girl. I called the doctor and she just had some nasty tummy bug. Said to come in on Monday if she had another sleepless and screaming night. So...I did just that. Sunday night=no sleep.

Monday the doctor said she was fine. I was getting mixed signals. He said she probably just wanted to sleep in bed with us (even though I told him that past 5 nights prior she screamed even in my bed & that she's been soothing herself to sleep for quite a while), then he said her ears looked fine, but later said she may have pain between her ears. Well, it's Friday and we've yet to have a restful night of sleep. Last night she came in our bed from 2-6. At 6 I carried her into her bed, screaming. She screamed for about 20 minutes and Joseph went in 3 times to give her the paci (If I go in...it's all over. Thank goodness for daddy!). She fell asleep and it wasn't anytime before she was screaming again. Back and forth for almost 2 hours.

Can anyone shed any light on this? I love my little baby girl and I want her happy self back. She is very happy during the day. She laughs, giggles, waves, talks, babbles, loves to walk, etc, etc. But...sleepy time=no happy time. I'm not trying to complain at all. She's worth everything, but I"m wondering if there is something here I'm missing? Is it just teeth? Night terrors? Any mommies out there, I'd love your advice :)