Last night, DD3mo cried every time I put her down to sleep.

Once I picked her up, she "talked/complained" nonstop and looked all over the place.

She finally fell asleep at 1am, and she was up again at 7 this morning "talking."

Where is my mellow baby?!?

Maybe something had frightened her? She may have been looking for the source of a sound, or maybe she was looking for something she'd seen in a dream. You could try playing music in her room all night to help block out sounds.

Or maybe she was looking for a particular object she wanted? A blankie, toy, etc?

I think 2-4 months is supposed to be the worst time for this sort of thing. Hang in there!

Ugh. That was the worst age. DS responded well to being in the swing, on high, while tightly swaddled. But they all like something different! Try for an early nap. Hope you get some rest.

I'm making milk for several kids right now (long story), and yesterday my toddler was away, so he didn't drink his share. DS1mo got too much foremilk & gulped a lot of air b/c of the heavy let-down... and I didn't clue in to what the problem was... So a bunch of Ovol and several hours of deepknee bends later... it was morning.

I said "I feel like I'm going to die" this morning, and DS2.5yrs (who, I'll point out, was once all-day non-digestive colicky) told me gleefully that I was joking, and demanded to bake a pie. And cookies. And muffins.

The moral of the story is: it gets better. He even made me coffee. (but I added the... erm... flavouring...)

(oooo, and they're playing one of my favourite medieval tunes on the radio, and I'm chatting online, life is actually pretty awesome right now..)

-Mich
(I know, you know, but it seemed like you might just need to hear it

Thanks guy. I sure hope it gets better. DS3 still require at least an hour of mental activities before he can fall asleep.

DD is so different DS, who cried nonstop as an infant due to his severe eczema.

On the other hand, she loves to look all over the place and to track everyone's movement.

when my kids were that little, luckily I did not have to go to work and punch someone elses clock, so we would just muddle through it all. I let them engage in all manner of supposedly "bad" sleep things like in the swing, in a bouncy chair, laying on me, laying next to me, oh you name it, lol!

Sleep for the baby and yourself is the real priority here, so find something(s) that work and don't let anyone tell you you're doing it wrong.

Oh, and we are huge fans of slings. Once you get used to it, if you don't already use one, your baby will likely have no problem falling asleep all over you.

Mr W did not regularly sleep more than 2 hours until he was 3.5 and was accelerated into a class with kids 1-2 years older than he. Even then he still wakes up 1-2 nights a week. He stopped napping around 6 mo and his last real nap was before he was 1 year old.

We do have a routine we use with him for bed, but some nights that does not work and he is bouncing off the walls until 11pm. We put a dinger on his doors and his lights have timers on them. Still, that does not work.

And despite all this, he is usually awake by 6:30 AM every morning.

The nap issue is a big deal at his school as they expect him to lay still for 1.5 hours while the other kids sleep. He really hates this nap time.

Days with high intellectual novelty wear him out the most - from since he was very little.

I got so lucky with this one with both of my kids. Ask me again if I feel lucky about this once they start school though. My kids are HEAVY sleepers. My one year old sleeps all night until about 9 am then nurses for an hour plus naps daily. My four year old has always slept about 10 hours. He used to sleep all morning, but now I send him to bed at 8:30pm and he gets up about 9 am. Thanks library for our great Magic Treehouse, Junie B Jones, and Hank the Cowdog CDs that he goes to bed for. <3.

Yes, I have considered what that means for their grouchy threshold for when school starts. It's going to have to be like a 7:30 bedtime for a 7 am wake-up.

BTW, congrats on the new baby.

I will bE miserable and up all night soon with mine because of the molars. That was my worse time ever with my boy because molars cause fevers and vomiting and about five days and nights straight of no-sleep mommy. Worst time ever. I expect it soon with the girl.

Ugh. Late nights with babies (and toddlers and preschoolers) are tough. It's so hard to know what's going on with them sometimes, especially before they can talk. Sometimes my daughter would have some rough nights in the days before she made some big developmental leap.

One thing in your description jumped out at me though, which is that your baby cried every time you put her down but talked when you picked her up. That reminds me very much of how my daughter was in infancy the first time she had an undiagnosed ear infection. It can be hard to know when a baby has an ear infection without a doctor visit since babies don't usually pull at their ears when they hurt, and sometimes they don't run a fever. We only discovered it because my daughter participated in a research study at the university where they were testing her response to auditory stimuli. One of the measures they took was ear pressure, and the person conducting the experiment happened to mention hers wasn't normal. (She also kept pulling the earpiece out of her ear because it was uncomfortable.) I took her to the doctor and, lo and behold, she had a raging ear infection.

What my husband and I noticed in retrospect was that she was having trouble staying asleep. Apparently, kids' ears hurt more when they're lying down and the pain can wake them up. She's still the same way now, at age 3 1/2. I can tell she's got an ear infection when she fusses about lying down or keeps waking up all night.

There are innumerable reasons babies don't sleep well, of course, so it could be anything, but I just thought I should mention it in case it can save you some sleepless hours.

Jenny

Right now our amazing bedtime routine includes, firstly, drugs (DS2's on a med that makes people drowsy), followed by watching movies and debating ethics for half an hour followed by nursing the 2.5 yr old for 30 mins while discussing history. Followed by.. drugs (ok, this time it's just anti-gas stuff), followed by 45 minutes of nursing the baby, followed by 20 minutes of walking the baby, followed by sending the toddler back to bed followed by trying to sleep untill the baby goes off. Disturbingly, we feel like this is a home run

I'm getting more sleep than I have in years!

;P

-Mich.