I am wondering if anyone else has my problem. Last night a large thunderstorm system passed through our area. My son woke up at 1:30 a.m. crying and screaming. I soothed him back to sleep and placed him back in his crib. He then started waking up every 30-45 minutes the rest of the night. (I brought him to bed with me at 2:30 a.m., but that didn't help.) He whines, fusses, tosses and turns and is generally uncomfortable.
Whenever a storm systems pass through this seems to be happening. If I leave him in his crib he will just fully wake up and start crying and screaming until I go in and pick him up. I bring him to bed with us and this eliminates him fully waking up, but he still whines and tosses and turns all night. This means that none of us gets any sleep then.
It doesn't seem to have anything to do with lighting or thunder because he is like this even if there is none.
I suffer from migraines and I am sensitive to pressure systems. They are a trigger for my migraines and I noticed that if the storm system triggers my migraine that my son is also restless at night. Many times though I do not get a migraine, but he is still restless.
The other frustrating issue is that I can not seem to do anything to calm him at night. One minute he wants to be cuddled and the next minute he is pushing you away. Nursing him seems to help, but he will not take a nuk.
I am wondering if he is extra sensitive to pressure systems or if there could be another problem. I am also looking for other options to help him sleep. I am a very tired and exhausted mom today due to only getting a few hours of sleep last night. Any and all ideas and assistance is very welcome.
I do plan on speaking with our pediatrician next week at his 18 month check-up about this issue.
He might be getting earaches from the pressure change with storm systems and waking because of pain. He also might have inherited your migraine susceptibility.
Have his ears checked!
I've never had this happen to a child, but it happens to me everytime the pressure changes dramatically, I just take some ibuprofen, and would reccomend the same for your son whenever you know a front will be moving through.
I have to say I'm glad I'm not alone....zzzzzzzzz.....zzzzzzzz....zzzzzzz
When he gets a little bit older, I could suggest making thunder storms fun for him. When I was a child, so that we were not afraid of storms, at the beginning of it, our mother would take us out on the front porch and give us rootbeer floats and we would watch the storm. She would talk to us about how beautiful nature is and how God was bowling in heaven or how he was crying because he stubbed his toe or something silly like that. But it took any fear away. The next time there is a thunder storm during the day, take him where he can see the lightning and rain and wind blowing and show him how awesome they are. Say things like "wowwwww, did you see that? wasnt that cool? did you see how bright that lightning was? wow look how fast the wind is blowing, can you blow like the wind?" At his age, it could help him to not fear them and once he is comfortable with the storm, he will most likly sleep through them. Try to tell him (In a way he understands lol) about storms. This way, if it isnt a physical reason for him waking up, it will sooth him and he will feel better about storms, and perhaps learn to love storms like my siblings and I. Hope it helps hun. Good luck.
