The boy has been driving me a little bit bonkers the last couple of weeks. There are so many different things going on that I can blame, but the main part is that he is not sleeping. He screams and screams when I put him to bed. I let him scream for 5-10 minutes until I can take it no longer and then I go get him and he ends up falling asleep in my lap around 9:00-10:00. After he is in a good, deep sleep I put him in his bed. Usually within an hour or two he is awake and the screaming commences again. At that point, I give up and bring him to bed with me where he snuggles up and sleeps (with a little tossing and turning) for the rest of the night and I sleep very little.
Here is the list of things that I keep running through my head that might be attributing to the problem:
- He is teething again. He has 4 teeth pushing on his gums right now trying to break free. I can feel the points through his gums so I know they must be a little painful for him.
- We have had extra people in the house for the last two weeks and there is pretty much no 1-on-1 time for him with Mommy or Daddy.
- His daily routine has been disrupted. He is staying home with Granny all day instead of going to day care where he has other kids to run and play and wear himself out with.
- His allergies seem to be in overdrive causing itchy eyes and a runny nose.
- He is learning so much right now that his little brain just can’t settle down. Plus, his mouth rarely stops moving. The kid just wants to talk, talk, talk. I have read that when kids are going through periods of rapid development that they often have sleeping problems.
All of these things have been haunting me. I knew it had to be one or a combination of all of them that was keeping him awake. Then lastnight I figured it all out. About 2 weeks ago, when he went to the doctor, she had me start him on Claritin for his allergies. It is supposed to be the non-drowsy formula so I wasn’t worried about him being sleepy during the day on it like he tends to be on Benadryl. I didn’t think about the fact that the Claritin could be keeping him awake.
Lastnight, instead of his usual dose of Claritin, I gave him Benadryl instead. At 8:00 I put him in bed. He cried (no screaming) for a couple of minutes and then fell asleep. He slept until I went in to get him up at 7:30 this morning. It was blissfull. I felt so refreshed this morning after actually getting to sleep all night and Zach must have too because he was in a particularly good mood when I left him with Granny. I’ll be calling his doctor today to see if we can change him to a different allergy med.
