Although Aiden has had many many colds, and one bout of vomit-inducing flu, he’s never spiked a fever. Until today.
Aiden had a bit of a rough night and was grumpy on-and-off this morning (see photo, sporting his new scraped nose from a fall on the weekend). He went down for his nap a little early and woke after only 30 minutes. This is compared to 2 or 3 hours, usually. He did this yesterday too, after 45 minutes. In both cases, I was unable to get him back to sleep after a long session trying.
Today, after I got him up, I offered him his lunch. He’d been too tired to eat it prior to his nap. He was very grumpy and barely ate anything. I decided to take him out. However, when I was putting on his shoes, I noticed he felt rather warm and was still flushed from his nap – or so I thought. We took his temperature – 101. A fever.
However, Aiden thinks the thermometer under his armpit is some form of torture. In the process of taking his temperature, either from being upset or in combination with his flu, he threw up. Repeatedly. We also later noticed a little rash on his cheek, so we are keeping an eye on that.
After this, I cuddled Aiden until he fell asleep and let him take a nice long nap. Tylenol brought down his fever and he went to bed ok. He’s off to a rockier start this evening, but Ianiv has taken over sleep training to perhaps take away the temptation for Aiden to ask to nurse. When we started this bout of sleep training, if Ianiv entered the room, Aiden would freak out. However, now he seems ok with him being there. Cross your fingers the next few nights improve.
I was hoping, by this time in our current sleep training regime, to be able to say, “this is how we got Aiden back to sleeping 12 hour nights” and explain it all. But we’re not there. Oh, how I wish we were.
I try not to be super negative in my posts, but the reality is that I’m tired. Beyond tired. Aiden hasn’t had a 12 hour sleep since Christmas. That’s a long long time ago.
While it may have started with a cold or with a bout of teething, Aiden regressed. Our sleep trainer calls him “sleep sensitive”, or a child who regresses easily. Though it’s completely normal for babies to wake during the night, a “good sleeper” will just roll over and go back to sleep. When anything bothers Aiden, he calls out for mama, and only for mama. Not only that, but he wouldn’t be consoled by me with anything but nursing. So, what may start as one nursing session to calm him at night slowly builds up to an every 2 hour habit. It’s a cycle we’ve been through before.
This time around, we’re trying to sleep train Aiden with a more gentle method, one that will (maybe) allow us a way to soothe him when he’s upset. Or at least to try. Given how badly his separation anxiety has been, and how much worse it becomes when he cries in his room, it was really our only option. Now that he has a grasp of language, I’m able to explain to him what’s happening and that I will sit by his crib until he falls asleep. He understands, even if he doesn’t like it.
The training is working, though I’m far from perfect. Some of the wakings can drag on for as much as 3 hours, with me going in and out of his room if he tries to engage. Sometimes I give in and nurse, though that’s hours into the process. Hopefully he’ll learn that it’s not worth it to wake. Right now he is down to one major long wake per night and a few smaller wakes – these ones are generally easy to fix now with a hug and a kiss and me walking out again. I will go into more detail of how it all works when it’s all behind us.
But at 2am when I’m sitting on the floor of Aiden’s room, I’m a mess. I’m exhausted. It drags into my days, with me not even wanting to be around Aiden by the time Ianiv gets home from work. I’m just TOO TIRED. It upsets me that I can’t enjoy all the moments I spend with Aiden.
It’s a phase. I know it will pass. But it SUCKS.
Up until recently, we have used the Angelcare movement and sound monitor as our primary baby monitor. Though we stopped using the movement sensor when Aiden could roll around, often rolling to the corners of the crib away from the sensor, the sound monitor worked well. We look forward to using the sensor again with baby #2, who will start out with a much different sleep plan than Aiden. Someday.
Recently, with the evil bout of teething & cold, it’s been hard to know when Aiden needed help. He cried out in his anxious cry a lot, but a couple of times I discovered that he was actually crying in his sleep, but me going to his room woke him up. To avoid these unnecessary trips, I decided I needed to see when Aiden really needed me and when he was attempting to go back to sleep on his own.
The video has been useful. It’s shown some funny habits we didn’t expect, like standing up in the middle of a nap, without a sound, then going back to sleep. Or prolonged bedtimes that were quiet, but where he actually took a long time to fall asleep.
Now that Aiden is finally getting better, I’m hoping the extra visual information will help me to know when he’s “given up” and needs some attention or when he may be likely to succeed at putting himself back to sleep.
The drawbacks of the particular video monitor we got, the MobiCam, may plague other monitors too. We discovered that the frequency of the monitor interfered with our Wireless, and so had to upgrade our router. An unexpected cost. Additionally, the video does not have a great battery life if not plugged in and makes an annoying buzz when plugged in, probably from cheap circuitry. There is a lag in the audio, as well, so we are using our old monitor for the audio monitoring still.
In the last month, Aiden has been hit with a whole set of new teeth. He has 4 molars coming in and got one of his bottom incisors. Though the incisor is almost fully grown out already, the molars are still only the edges. It’s been a slooooow and painful process for Aiden. He’s always poking at his mouth and is in obvious discomfort. He started waking up numerous times in the night.
To make matters worse, my little cold turned into bronchitis. And then Aiden got it. All of a sudden, everything fell apart. Aiden was waking up every hour one night, every 30 minutes the next and would not go back in his crib the third. This mama was TIRED. I spent my time rocking, nursing, cuddling and trying to stay sane. There was some crying involved, I do admit it. I don’t mean from Aiden alone, either.
We had rough times when Aiden was a colicky newborn, but I don’t think I ever went an entire night without sleep. Perhaps I gave up more quickly then, to sleeping in a chair. But a toddler is a lot more fidgety than a newborn!
During the day, Aiden was tired and fussy, as you can expect. We let him take 2 naps or a really long nap instead. But it’s hard to give everything you have to a clingy toddler when you’re not getting rest. Thankfully, Ianiv was around to help from time to time during the day and my mother has helped several times, including providing us with meals all week.
Aiden seems to be on the mend. Though he’s not sleeping as well yet, he’s not sleeping as badly. And he took a 3 hour nap yesterday – which meant that *I* took a 3 hour nap. Today his day was nearly back to normal.
Aiden’s teeth at 16 months (green for new):
These days, Aiden sleeps in his crib with his donkey, two larger blankies he uses as a pillow, and his little Silkie blanky. Sometimes he’ll ask for another stuffy to join in.
Many months ago, I tried to introduce a particular blanket as a lovey. I noticed Aiden was growing fond of one blanket I could not duplicate and, in my worry, hunted down a similar blanket that I could buy two of. Well, wouldn’t you know it that, while Aiden was sleeping with both blankets in his crib, he would go ahead and attach to a different lovey.
He chose the Silkie, a soft blanky that is satin on one side and fleece on the other. It came with our Slumber Bear (a huge disappointment, as it only plays for 2 minute intervals!!) and just happened to be in the pile of his stuffies on the floor. Well, he went ahead and attached to it, big time. He’d point to it and grab it like his life depended on it. There was no getting him into his crib without it.
The lovey actually helped Aiden to nurse longer, particularly during his strike periods, as it gave him both comfort and something to play with while nursing. It’s in his hand as he falls asleep and is clutched there when he asks to be picked up in the morning.
He’s allowed to have his blanky as much as he wants in his room, but when it’s time to go downstairs, we always ask him to place it in his crib. This has worked out really well so far – at first, he’d cry when it was taken away, but neither of us were comfortable with him carrying it around all day (and sucking his thumb, which the blanket triggers). Instead, we used his natural desire to please to create a routine where he would say goodbye to blanky on his own terms.
Today, after months of searching, I found 2 additional Silkies in the same colour. They’ve been out of stock everywhere that has online ordering. Active Baby came to the rescue – though their online store doesn’t list them, the store had them!
Although Aiden has had many many colds, and one bout of vomit-inducing flu, he’s never spiked a fever. Until today.
