crying until he vomits

both of our boys have severe reflux and for a long time they slept propped up in their bouncy chairs. we transitioned jacob to the crib 2 months ago but owen let us know he wasn't ready yet. we recently transitioned him to the crib because his bouncy chair is practically level with the floor because of his weight. since he's lying flat anyway, we transitioned him to the crib.

for the first week he was fabulous. normal bedtime fussing, then sleeping solidly. he seems so much happier to have freedom of movement and he's waking up well rested and chipper. but twice in the last 5 days owen has totally forgotten how to self-soothe and cried hysterically at bedtime until he vomited. and i don't mean small barf, i mean his entire stomach contents. while he's laying on his belly.

when we put them down we usually rub their backs to soothe them and when they seem like they're calm we leave the room. they inevitably throw a fit at that point but it rarely lasts more than 10 minutes and then they're out for the night. but on these vomit nights owen works himself up to hysteria and then starts coughing and then it turns into a full blown stomach blow-out.

i'm not sure what to do at this point. he's heavy enough that i feel like it's not safe to have him in the bouncy chair at this point. he's got to sleep in the crib for his own safety. i try rubbing his back and shushing him to soothe him but he won't fall completely asleep if i'm standing in his line of sight. he just gets crabbier and crabbier and rubs his eyes like he's exhausted but he's compelled to look at me. and even if he's close to sleep the instant he detects i'm leaving he immediately starts crying.

he's not good at calming himself down, we're dealing with separation anxiety, and he works himself up to a vomit. i am totally out of ideas. tonight he's back in the bouncy chair because his whole crib was wrecked with vomit and i didn't want to wake his brother up changing the sheet.

i would love any and all suggestions.

 

I don't have any experience with that but ugh, it sounds frustrating. :hug:

 

OMG, we have some bouncy chair addicts at our house, too. Yes, they pretty much touch the floor at this point! At night, they both sleep in cribs. Have you thought about bouncing him for a while until he gets sleepy, then switching to the crib? We do that now. I'd like to move towards going directly into the crib, but we aren't there yet. Once they get pretty sleepy, but not quite out, we switch them over. I don't know if that will help or not. Do you think he might be teething? Just wondering since his behavior has changed. My DD is teething and she is so much more cranky and screechy now.

hang in there!

 

he might be teething, but my god it seems like they're always teething.

i'm not sure we could switch him because he can snap out of a cold sleep in an instant if he thinks we're leaving the room.

 

Ugh! I am so sorry. Is he still on meds for the reflux? If not, maybe the acid is starting to bother him again. We had a resurgence of reflux just after we got over the meds due to them being really mobile and on their bellies alot.

Also, maybe its worth helping him self soothe by rocking or walking until he is getting drowsy and then put him down in the crib and soothe him some more. I know at about 7 months mine were just learning to self soothe and it was not an easy process. :hug:

 

My dd had this crying till she vomitted issue too. She too had reflux and was on prevacid. She was also being seen by a GI specialist for her milk allergy. Her vomitting was getting so bad we were going to have an endoscopy done two weeks ago. Thankfully, she stopped and has done a complete 180. I took her off her prevacid and she totally turned around..This is not a suggestion for you to do. She always has slept in her crib though so it wasn't bouncer withdrawls for us. After she would vomit, I would give her another bottle, put her in her crib and she would go back down. I think for her it was a period of separation anxiety that she went through. She eventually grew out of it, but it was very hard to deal with. It's hard to let them cio when you know there is a chance of vomitting. I would go in there when she got really upset and try to soothe her before she would throw up. It worked most of the time, but like I said, she grew out of it. I would also think about talking to your pediatrician to see if they have any suggestions. Goodluck!

 

Nady used to do the same thing. We ended up putting 2 sheets on the crib and letting her CIO for a couple of nights. After she fell asleep we would gently take off the top sheet and leave her with a clean bed to sleep in. It took a few nights but she stopped on her own once she realized that bedtime is for sleeping and overly dramatic crying was not going to get her out of the crib.

We play the same CD every single night in the nursery and I believe that goes a long way towards how good they sleep at night. The babies know that they are in their crib and the "sleepy music" is on so they lay down and go to bed. It was tough the first week but sooooooo worth it now.

 

so last night we soothed him until he was asleep before putting him down. it's not ideal because we'd like him to put himself to sleep but if this is what we have to do to get through this phase then we'll do it. he woke up as usual at the 45 minute mark and cried like crazy but we kept an ear out with an agreement that we would let him CIO unless he sounded like he was accelerating like he has the last couple of times. fortunately he settled himself back down and made it through the night on his own.

the other thing we did was switch cribs. the thing is, we always relied on the one crib closest to the door for putting them in a safe place before they became dedicated beds. like, they slept in their bouncy chairs and they were only ever in the crib while they were awake because of the constant refluxing if they were lying flat for too long. jacob made the crib transition first so that became his bed. when it was owen's turn he got the other crib that has a totally different view and doesn't have the same aquarium soother. we were wondering if part of his reaction was fear because he's suddenly been transitioned to an unfamiliar bed, along with the unfamiliar feeling of sleeping lying flat.

so last night we switched them, since jacob has become a crib-sleeping pro. i don't know if it helped, but i suspect it did just a little.

although jacob woke up at 3:30 this morning sounding very worried and i'm wondering if he looked for his aquarium and it wasn't there and he was disoriented, too. i'm going to go buy a second aquarium this weekend.

 

So glad that you didnt have to clean up barf and then he settled himself. :woohoo: Keep up the great work.

 

Just fyi-I saw a lot of those aquariums at the baby consignment store. I bought mine and BRU, but wish I would have checked there first! We are getting ready to switch our DD from a pack and play into a second crib. I'm kind of dreading it. She is very aware when we change something in her surrounding. Hope it continues to get better!

 

yes, there's a once upon a child that opened here a few months ago. that's where i got the last one ($8!!!!!) so i'm hoping for a similar score this time.