Sleep Strike

Oh my god oh my god oh my god what is UP with my child recently?!?!?!?! This dude will just not sleep. He's obviously tired: rubbing his red-rimmed eyes, yawning, fussy. But the second I put him down in his crib it's hysterical crying and screaming. I give him a minute to find his thumb and sooth himself (or a few minutes if I've lost it and need some time to deal with my frustration - as we were directed to do by the nurse who made us sign a waiver saying she told us about "shaken baby syndrome" before being discharged with him after his birth). But it's like all of a sudden he forgot about his thumb, which he used to love and it would calm him down in all of 2 seconds!! My sweet little baby who used to go down for a nap all smiley is now a ferocious best determined to NEVER SLEEP AGAIN!!!

It started when we went down to visit my family in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago, but has been getting progressively worse. And recently the sleep strike has extended into the night. Last night he woke me up 3 times because he had flipped to his tummy and couldn't flip back, twice because he had gotten his feet stuck between the rails of the crib, and another 2-3 times because he was kicking the side of the crib so hard I was scared he might bust the rail off and fall onto the floor (is this one of those unwarranted mom worries, or can it really happen??)!! Finally I couldn't take it and just brought him into bed with me. Daddy is out of town, so there was plenty of space thank goodness.

Aghhhh this has got to be some sort of phase he's transitioning through, right? Teething perhaps? But he doesn't seem to be in pain - it seems to be completely emotional. I guess he's getting to that magical point around 6 months where he's developing object permanence and self-awareness and... MANIPULATION!!! I don't want to create a habit where I break down and nurse him back to sleep every time. But I don't want to cause him (and me) undue trauma by just letting him scream his little head off. Meanwhile, I just can't get the title of that one hilariously inappropriate children's book read by Samuel L. Jackson out of my head: "Go the F*K to Sleep!!!"

Advice? Support?? Valium???