Monday, July 28, 2008

Terribles twos coming early ...

... at bedtime at least?

Getting Truman to bed the last three nights has been horrible. Friday night involved Truman vomiting on Mama's face twice with no warning. No fussing, no gagging--just bam, face and hair full of vomit, full bed soaked.

Mama was on her own Saturday night as Daddy was hosting a bachelor party. Three hours later, Daddy had to come home to help. This was after two rounds of vomit, a third threatened one, much screaming and crying, a squirt of cleaning fluid in the eyes by a misbehaving toddler. Remember, there were no sheets on the big bed because of the previous night's vomit, so I had to get out the upholstery cleaner where he got beyond the towels I laid down "just in case." Well, when I was scrubbing, Truman grabbed the cleaner and squirted himself in the eyes, so add an eye and face bath to the two baths he already had that night.

Those sound bad, but Truman was just building up to Sunday night. Last night the bedtime process lasted from 8:30 to about 2 a.m. with a one-hour nap in there by Truman. It took both parents, vomit, lots of screaming and crying to get him to sleep.

Although this sounds like a really rough night of crying-it-out, it wasn't. Truman was usually in the arms of one or the other of his parents or in his bed with one of his parents patting him this entire time.

We really have no idea what to do. We're almost to the point of letting him sleep in his own vomit. Would that really be that horrible?

3 comments:

FFF said...

I have no idea if this will work, because my son did not throw up, he just pitched a fit when I tried to get him to sleep through the night. It is seriously one of the most frustrating things ever. At 14 months, when our kiddo was still not sleeping through the night, we decided to do a kinder, gentler version of the Ferber CIO thing. We'd do the exact same bath, books, bed routine every night, at exactly the same time, put him down, let him cry for 5 minutes, then go in, then let him cry for 10 minutes, then go in, and then every 10 minutes after that. It took SIX weeks for him to sleep through the night, so when the books promise 1 week, that's not quite right.

Most of the blogs and books say if your kid throws up, go in, change him quickly (do you have the Ultimate Crib Sheet? Google it) and avoid eye contact and comfort noises, clean up, and leave again. I know that would be hard for me to do, but just sharing some knowledge, ya know?

Anonymous said...

Hey guys, long time no talk! I feel for you on the no sleeping issue, because our first son was impossible to "train". We tried all the methods out there we could find, nothing worked, and the crying it out thing only kept us up ALL NIGHT. So, sometimes I just sleep with Dylan or let him crawl in with us (I know, lots of head shaking going on, i'm sure, from all those great moms who figured out how to get their kids to sleep alone!)but some kids just won't or can't for whatever reason. The only thing that calms him sometimes is being held, and i can't stay awake past a certain time, so we just got him a double bed so we could curl up with him. Our younger son was sleeping through long before Dylan. We do the same routine every night, and hope for the best. Hang in there! It won't last forever.

Haley said...

Hey, I'm going to see you guys soon but I probably won't remember to tell you this at that time. Brooklyn had this same issue - not sleeping well and throwing up in bed a lot because of her issues. I started strapping her into her swing and letting her sleep all night in that. Whether she was swinging or not, she was at least propped up. Sometimes she'd vomit in it but if I didn't hear her go nuts I'd leave her. I know, gross, but she'd often go back to sleep. In the long run I thought it was more important for her to establish better sleep habits than for me to clean her up right away. As she got older and could grab the swing legs I would still put her in but just not start it. If she was really having trouble sleeping I would wrap her up so that her arms were pinned and she couldn't grab the swing legs if she wanted to, then I'd let the machine rock her to sleep. We still have to use this occassionally. But usually she's in her crib now unless we're trying a new food that has her throwing up again.