7.5 Month old...nightmares??

Hi R.,

You are not alone when it comes to a child with sleeping issues. There are plenty of us out there that just don't want to broadcast it! We all spend a lot of time judging our parenting skills by how well or how not well our children sleep. Like it's our choice! Every kid is different. Some are sleepers, some are not. Some need more comfort than others. They are ones the deciding what they need - not us! And while it's hard to live without sleep, just know that you won't have these days/hours with her again. She will grow up fast and become independent. You may, believe it or not, miss those hours holding her.

I agree that she is too young for night terrors. It could be teething or an ear infection. Maybe she just needed you near her. I have had more than a few nights where one of my twin boys will wake up screaming and unconsolable.Tylenol really is a miracle drug for teething pain. After 20 minutes you'll know if that was what it was. And while no one likes to be a human pacificer, I can't think of any better drug than nursing to calm a upset/hurting child. The sucking can be very calming and good for their clearing out their ears.

And while many people will disagree with me on this one, I have no problem bringing a child back to bed with me. It lets me comfort him, nurse as need, and best of all sleep, which is essential when you work fulltime or have the children all day. As a working mom, I love feeling the heat of their little bodies and hear the breath of my sleeping child vs. trying to sit up in a chair in the nursery counting the minutes until I can get back into my warm bed. And guess what? Dads can sleep with babies too!

I think its a pretty Western/modern idea that a child should sleep all alone in a crib down the hallway away from their parents from the day they are born. Really? Is that what our ancestors did? At the very least, didn't they kids sleep with other kids /little bodies? When people live in a single room house/hut, don't think you think the nursing baby slept with (or near) the parents and then later with older siblings once the next child came along?

Sorry to digress. I just think sometimes we have it wrong. I realize we all need sleep to function, but you will get through this. Take life a little slower and if possible with fewer obligations. Enjoy this time now with your daughter. She'll sleep more when she is ready.

A.

You won't see the teeth sprouting when kids are teething. When you see the teeth, the pain is usually gone because the teeth have broken through. So she could be teething. There is nothing wrong with giving her some tylenol, especially if you have tried all other avenues. I would just give her some tonight around 9 pm and see if this helps her sleep through the night. My son also got a little bit of a cold when he was teething, so this very well could be teething. baby Motrin works great too and lasts longer, like 6 hours instead of 4.

I'm not sure if nightmares could be an issue in a 7 month old. My son began having nightmares when he was 2 1/2 yrs old and I thought I once read somewhere that 2 yrs old is about when nightmares can begin. I don't know when night terrors can begin.

It could have been a night terror. Our daughter had them around that age, too, and thankfully she's outgrown them (though they're more common in older children).

Here's some information on them in the event this is close to what you experienced. Usually, children have no memory of night terrors (compared to nightmares for which there is usually a memory):
http://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/presch...