Baby’s Restless Nights

New babies are just learning how to adjust to sleeping patterns, so nighttime wakings can have a variety of causes. If your baby isn’t sick or doesn’t have an ear infection (my sons had many that only woke them in the evenings), most likely she is teething. The teething baby tends to wake up crying with her fingers in her mouth and will drool during the day. Sometimes this is accompanied by a fever. During the tough teething nights, we’d bring our son into our bed and let him suck on a cold washcloth. His teething was once so bad that I let him play with a bowl of ice—which immediately took his mind off the pain. But in the end it was the baby Motrin that worked best.

The other restless nights that may keep baby up are those right before he enters a new stage of development. T. Berry Brazelton coined the term Touchpoints™ to describe how when children show a sudden burst in one area of development, they often “regress,” or backslide, in another area. This can be stressful to parents because Touchpoints disorganize children’s behavior and routines. However, being aware of this phenomenon helps parents carefully watch and understand their child’s behavior and strengths. I’ve heard dozens of mothers mention that the day before their baby took his first steps, he was up all night. Both my sons were up crying a lot during the middle of the night the day before they walked.

Some parents have mentioned that their baby had a few fitful nights and days leading up to their child’s vocabulary burst of new words. My second son was up for three nights, rolling around, not sleeping well, when lo and behold, the third morning he sprung three new words on us in one day. We were so shocked and excited—aren’t babies just the most amazing beings? So the next time your baby keeps you up all night, there might be something to look forward to in the morning!