Tips on Handling Illness-related night wakings

Joe has always been my good sleeper. "Thank God for stable Joe" is the saying in our house. Well, last night he woke up really upset (a very sad, scared cry) at 2am. After 5-minutes of him getting worked up to the point of crying so hard he was coughing/making gagging sounds, I went in.

I checked for poop, puke, and a fever, and when I found none of those I gave him a hug, laid him down, said "Mommy loves you but it's still night night time. Go to sleep." and left. He was really angry, but settled down and eventually went back to sleep after about 15-minutes of crying. He woke up again at 4:45, moaned twice and went back to sleep until 6:45.

When I got him this morning he had a full-blown fever. I feel terrible for not taking better care of him last night. But, I'm at a loss...we've been very healthy and haven't really encountered this before.

How do you handle night time illness-related wakings without jeopardizing sleeping habits? We have struggled for the past 2 months with our other twin and have just finally gotten him out of our bed and sleeping well. I don't want to start something with Joe, but I don't want to abandon a sick boy, either.

HELP.

 

Hey there!

I feel your pain. We go through stuff like this from time to time, too. Ben and Jake are excellent sleepers for the most part, and when one of them wakes in the night with no obvious cause, it usually indicates an illness is right around the corner. Once they are sick, it's so hard to find that balance of not neglecting them in any way but still maintaining some sense of normalcy for sleeping. Rocking them even for a few minutes is enough to really screw things up, but sometimes, you have to. If they are super-sick at night (like vomiting), we will obviously stay up with them until they are totally fine and ready to sleep.... but if they have a cold/virus that stretches on for days, we do whatever we can to make them comfortable (vaporizer in room, pain/cold meds, nose drops) and try to let them soothe themselves to sleep as normal. If they cry, we will go in to comfort briefly (no picking up), but we don't rock them to sleep. Usually it's the first night of feeling bad that is the worst, but sometimes not. Fortunately, they have good sleeping habits in general, and I think that helps them a lot when the going gets tough. Unfortunately, sometimes we do have to let them cry (going in at intervals to comfort).

I know some will disagree, but for us, rocking rarely works. It is a real treat for them, and they will often go into a deep sleep, only to immediately awaken when put back in bed and become furious. THEN you have to determine if any subsequent crying is due to wanting to be rocked or just from being sick. And they are confused because they never get rocked and they keep crying to see if you'll come back in to rock them some more. Of course, if they are REALLY sick, all bets are off and you just do what you have to do to survive and pay for it later. But if you are talking about a longer-term, run-of-the-mill cold-type virus, for us it has worked better to try to keep things as normal as possible.

Hope this makes sense! We went through a similar thing this evening. Pretty much sucks.

 

"I feel terrible for not taking better care of him last night."


Please don't beat yourself up. You checked him for a fever when he woke up during the night. There's no way you could tell he'd be sick in the morning. You're taking great care of them!

My DS has been sick with a cold and cough lately; he's been waking up 3-4 times a night because of his cough. I go in and offer him water in a sippy cup, pat him on his back, give him his lovey and say "Night night." Luckily that's been working; he goes back to sleep. But I have to admit that last cold season I'd let the sick child sleep with me on the couch, because that was the only way we'd get any sleep. I found that after a few days of that, we could go back to the regular sleep pattern, but maybe I was just lucky. I think you have to experiment and see what works with your kids. Good luck!

thea

 

We've gone through this recently too. My boys didn't sleep through the night until about 16 months, but once they started I definitely didn't want to go back. One ds had a bad bout of croup a few weeks ago, and I decided to risk it all and nurse him back to sleep whenever he woke up. Breastfeeding for us has always been the miracle cure - a 2 minute nurse and they're out like a light. I figured he needed his sleep to get better and I wanted to do anything I could to help him sleep. I also think I'm quicker to respond because they aren't old enough to tell me what's hurting - I know I can't sleep with a sore throat, so how can I expect them to? Anyway, to make a long story short, he went right back to sleeping through the night as soon as he got better. I think in total we spent about 4 nights nursing him several times a night, then one night we did some very minor CIO (just 10 min or so) once he was feeling better. We're back to normal now, and hoping they don't catch this nasty cold I'm suffering from right now! :angry:

 

We went through a stomach bug a few weeks back and had to give Bea a bath and completely change the crib in the middle of the night. All the commotion of course woke Ainsley too, but surprisingly, they both went back to sleep quickly. If they wake and sound upset when sick, I go in, do whatever I have to do (change, wipe noses, etc) and give them a hug and kiss and put them back down. I don't change the bedtime routine or anything. When they have been sick, they go to sleep pretty quickly without all the partying they normally do. HTH!

 

We've been sick ALOT, so I feel your pain. My boys have been sleeping thru since around 4-5 months, but we still have some night wakings. It's really hard to determine if it's sickness or from just them waking. So, I usually get up, try to calm them, then put them back down. Depending on how sick I know they are usually determines how quickly I go in, not *if* I go in, kwim? They really do sleep so well most of the time, that if somebody wakes, it's usually because they don't feel well. We've just always been consistent about night time, so maybe that has helped.

Sorry Joe is sick! I would go check on him now that you know he is sick (don't worry too much that you didn't know he was sick before...it's such a hard age right now since they can't tell us what's wrong). And, just adjust back to what you were doing before once he is well. He'll adjust back to the routine.

Shannon

 

I can't swear to it, but my guess is that if he was a good sleeper before getting sick, he will be one again when he's well. We do break certain rules (like not going to them at night, or not letting them have loveys anywhere but the crib) when we know they need the comfort, and we haven't had too much trouble re-establishing the rules when they are well again. You will know when it's time.

And this too:
QUOTE
But if you are talking about a longer-term, run-of-the-mill cold-type virus, for us it has worked better to try to keep things as normal as possible.

For instance, Sarah is coughing a lot right now, but I know that she's really asleep, and if I go in there, it will just wake her up and make things worse. They do tend to wake a bit more often when they have stuffy noses etc., but even if I hear a fuss once in a while, I don't go in unless it is prolonged. They are usually much quicker to go back to sleep without my "help" than they would be with it.

Also, don't beat yourself up too much. You did what you could last night, you had no way of knowing he was getting sick. And you said he did go back to sleep and slept the whole rest of the night (with that one brief waking), so it sounds like it wasn't really that bad. :hug99:

 

I have been going through illness here since August (long story) however, we are dealing with coughing in the night. The only way I am reassured they are okay is we have security cameras attached to each crib so when we hear anything from coughing, moaning, fussing we turn on the tv and the cameras activate and we can see what is happening. Nine times out of ten they are still asleep when they are coughing or moaning out loud but, at least I have peace of mind.

I hope your little Joe gets better well. I understand fully having sick wee ones and trying to make them comfortable as possible in the process.