He also takes very short naps like 20 minutes and then wakes up screaming bloody murder. He can and does climb out of his crib. I keep the side lowered because he does fall sometimes.
I lay on the loveseat to get him to sleep at bedtime and naptime which can take 15-30 minutes. Once he is asleep I sneak out until he screams. I've tried putting him back over and over like the nanny but it is like no child I have ever scene. (however I've only lived with one other child) He seems so terrified. The screaming does not lessen at all, but he totally stops when I'm in the room. Also, no tears but shaking and quivering.
This child needs sleep and I need help.
Any suggestions are welcome!
Besides for this issue Cody is wonderful!
Have you tried moving his crib into your bedroom? Our son desperately needed that when he came home, and without doing that, we would not have made it through the sleep stuff. For the first couple of weeks, he wouldn't even go in his crib. He would scream bloody murder. I just let him sleep on our bed. He HAD to sleep on top of me. My husband and I did rotations at first as the bed wasn't big enough for all 3 of us. One of us would sleep with Gav while the other would sleep in the guest room. At first we did two nights on, and two nights off. Gav would wake up every hour. After about 3 weeks, he stopped waking every hour, but he did wake up at that same time that you mentioned Cody does, and start screaming. This is when I trasitioned him to his crib right on the side of my bed. All three of us then slept in the same room for several months.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to say that our son now sleeps through the night in his own room, but I won't lie- it was really, really hard at first. He needed that comfort of Jim or I being right there. Being able to hear us breath, not be alone, etc. He would wake up screaming and be terrified, and it was very comforting to him to find both of us there. It was also easier on me. I could just sit up in bed, soothe him a little, and then we could all fall back asleep together again.
We didn't co-sleep (her crib in our room) with our daughter, and I regret that. We did with our son, and it's good we did because he really needed it. We'll definitely do it with our next child. If you're a little wary of having a child sleep in your room (no privacy, too much noise to sleep well, crowded spaces, etc.) it helped me to be able to put a time limit on it. i.e. "This is only for 4 months. I can do anything for 4 months." In our case, it was less than 4 months, but that's because Gav was ready.
Just for a frame of reference, our son is almost 2, and has been home for 8 months.
Best wishes to you. I'm sure there are many more ideas out there, and I hope people will give you some great suggestions to try.
Our daughter went through similar transition sleep stuff for a couple weeks after she got home - I thought the periods of sleeping next to her bed would last forever, but my husband reassured me that the time would be short and we needed to reassure her however we could while she needed it. He was right, seriously it wasn't more than 3 or 4 weeks until she was totally fine and still is today. Really amazing, in retrospect that it took that short a time to get over jetlag as well as transition into our family and country and a whole new life for her, in terms of her sleep-peace. I'm sorry things are not going as smoothly for you and Cody...I can imagine it's gotten really hard for you all by now!
ReplyDeleteTwo thoughts come to mind - trauma from something earlier in his life and/or chronic overtiredness. Kids, when they are overtired, actually sleep less - adults it's the same deal - it's like our bodies aren't able to fully settle into deep sleep and they react with us getting freaky at regular intervals, if that makes sense. So the bio parent in me says that you may have to do some "tough love" letting him cry it out for a few nights - for him to fall asleep out of pure exhaustion, get caught up on much needed sleep and then settle into a new normal. But because you probably don't know what, if anything, is past trauma related, I can understand if you are hesitant to do the cry it out deal. Perhaps, if you have a hunch it is trauma related, if you do more snuggling, holding, reassuring, mellow time together during the day, it will build new feelings/memories/security into his brain faster (as I KNOW you're already building those now, but he, unfortunately, still had more time being an orphan than not at this point in his life, I'm guessing) to replace the bad memories. And, of course, pray over him often, for the Lord to heal him and grant him peace and security in his concious (sp?) as well as subconcious.
Another random thought, and I'm SO not an expert, is seizures of some sort? Perhaps you could get him checked for that as some people have ones that are unnoticeable - maybe he is and that is what is waking him/causing him the shaking?
I'm sorry you are going through this - 6 months is a long time with anyone (newborn or older) to be going through sleepless nights....make sure YOU are getting the rest and restoration YOU need in order to have your wits about you to help Cody. I am praying for you now.
Shan in CO
Julie, I'm not an AP, but I have sworn by the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby" with both boys. There are all kinds of scenarios & don't know how it might work with Cody, but maybe it would help. Both of my boys, nap for a couple of hours during mid-day and sleep from 7:30pm to 7am. Good luck to you!
ReplyDeleteMisty
My daughter (who is under two and also from Kaz) had an awful few months after coming home. At bedtime and sometimes in the middle of the night, she screamed and cried and couldn't be consoled even if I held her. If I left the room, she would cry and scream as though she was being tortured. It was not nearly as bad as Cody's experience, but I have some suggestions:
ReplyDelete1. Feed him dinner and then go for a walk or somehow give him a lot of exercise (even if he had a busy day). Then give him another snack before the bedtime routine.
2. Put a humidifier or white noise machine in his room and let it run all night. Let him turn it on every night as part of the routine.
3. Try to let him cry it out once. It took about 10-15 minutes of hard crying (Mommy cried softly) the first time I did it. This may not be at all possible at this stage. You may be still establishing trust, so don't push it (and I know you're saying "how CAN I when he's so terrified?!")
In the beginning, I kept saying to myself, "first comfort, then leave", but my daughter wasn't ready. So I started by just turning my back after comforting and then waiting for her to fall asleep. If she still cried, I would comfort her and then turn my back again. Eventually, I only comforted her with quick hugs and pats, but no talking. Then I could skip the touching, too, depending on how jard she was crying. I would just turn and point at her crib to indicate that she should lie back down. Eventually I made it to the doorway and then I could step out of the room for a while. Sometimes she'd sleep and sometimes she wouldn't. But finally (after about two months of this), things just changed and everything slowly got better. I felt like it happened when she suddenly had a lot more trust in me. Unfortunately, I can't explain it better than that! We still have times when it's like she's having a tantrum in the middle of the night, but it's happening much less than it used to.
I know you probably have an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. But it will get better. Really! Best of luck to you and Cody! Please keep us posted on his progress.
Hi Julie,
ReplyDeleteI've had a difficult time posting my comment, hope I'm not repeating myself.
What you decribe Cody going through sounds like a night terror, which is very different to the challenge of encouraging a child to self sooth as you would see on the Nanny show. Night terror is not that uncommon for children in the international adoption community. My friends who have experienced it with their children have said that co-sleeping allows baby and mom to get a real nights sleep. Do what you need to do to get the sleep you need! Oh, and don't think of Cody as being 2 years old, think of him being 6 months old, as in his age with you as his family. Sometimes that helps when thinking of how to respond to him.
Here are a couple of articles regarding night terror that might be helpful
http://www.chinesechildren.org/Newsletter/Professional%20Corner%5CPC_04_2007.pdf
and
http://library.adoption.com/articles/night-terrors.html
I'm no professional but in my humble opinion it sounds like he is working thru his loss and his grief. He is petrified to loose you, he's lost everything once before. I was advised to ask questions as they can't verbalize what they are feeling, so I asked questions like "did you miss me at the babyhouse" "were you sad to leave" and of course to re-assure over and over and over that you will never leave him and you are family forever. Also tell him it's ok to be sad about it, but that he also has a wonderful family now.
ReplyDeleteWe have a little book called (I think) "Mama always comes home" it's been great for us, I can get you the proper title if you like, just let me know!
Good luck, I know it's heart wrenching
Gosh, I'm not sure. How about moving the crib temporarily in your room? Has he done this since he came home? Could be he is used to being surrounded by other children? Could be fear? Sadly, we will never know all of what happened to our children before they came home. Our middle bio child (age almost 6) now wakes after midnight and comes and sleeps in a sleeping bag next to our bed.
ReplyDeleteYou could try an herbal sleep supplement. We used 'Tranquil Sleep' by Natural Factors since Nicholas came home and just stopped it and he has been here 1 year now. It helped him to fall asleep quickly and he never woke in the night. Never napped though, although I think he needed it.
I just read the post about night terrors. I have 2 kids who get night terrors - use 2 different approaches with them - one is best left alone (the more we "mess" with him, the more riled up he gets but if we just literally go, say, "you're fine" and lay him back down, he settles WAY faster) and the other we need to completely wake up, turn on the lights, talk about happy things, etc. - whole process takes 10 minutes or so. BUT with both, the NTs occur at around 10/10:30 pm, NEVER in the middle of the night, which I heard is really the norm. So while I considered NTs in responding to you, I thought of them only in the "our bodies get freaky from being overtired" context, in which, technically, I don't even think they are night terrors. Of course, I am not the pro, but know that if this is what you are dealing with, different strategies work for different kids....nice how we exhausted moms don't even get a formula for how to go about maybe the hardest part of our job! Still praying for you!
ReplyDeleteShan in CO again
LMI posted a link to this free guide to first year adoption parenting http://emkpress.com/realisticexpectations.html which had a section on sleeping issues (it is very common) and a list of tips and resources.
ReplyDeleteFor both Miras and Irina we put a fold-away crib in our room and co-slept at first. Miras used to wake up a lot at night at first though fortunately he wasn't screaming bloody murder. But it was easier to talk him back to sleep from my bed than to trek upstairs. This lasted about 2 months and he was actually pretty happy to transition to his own room (we started naps in his room at first then bedtime). We are now co-sleeping with Irina but I don't think that we'll need to do it for long as she goes down pretty easily (I now stand around the corner and tell her "night-night" when she fusses and she settles down quickly) and is pretty much sleeping all night now that she is over jet lag. And she has a stuffed bear that she finds comforting when she wakes. And a 'radio' (Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes) which plays classical music which she finds soothing if she wakes up and will put herself back to sleep for the most part. I just ordered a Neurosmith Sunshine Symphony toy from Amazon for her which is a cuddly radio that also has textures for teething/sensory stimulation and hope it will be more bedtime friendly. I used to give Miras a semi-boring or repetitive toy in bed when he was having trouble falling asleep. It gave him something to do/focus on that wasn't overstimulating and eventually he would tire and fall asleep. So if there is something that he likes that you can include in the crib that would soothe him or even distract him, you could try that too. Good luck! I am lucky that my husband has a lot more patience than me related to putting children back to sleep in the middle of the night. I am a cranky bear when I don't get my sleep.
Oh, one other thought. I understand that night terrors and night waking can get worse if a child is over-tired. If you think this is the case, perhaps you can try moving bedtime up or letting him sleep longer.
ReplyDelete