No longer STTN! Teething? Hunger? Something else?

My DS finally started STTN at 6 months old. He's now 7.5 months old and in the past week he now wakes up at 4:50am every day. Last night he woke up around 3:30am instead of 4:50am.

In the past 2 weeks, he's gotten his first two teeth. Could it be teething pain? When he wakes up at that time, he sounds very congested so I've been trying to use the aspirator to clean out his nose, but he screams bloody murder and it's so hard to even get it in his nostrils. Once I finally get that done, he still stays crying. Two nights ago I gave him tylenol (generic) and after about 20 minutes he went to sleep. I tried CIO a couple of nights ago, but he would fall asleep and 5 minutes or 10 minutes later he'd be up crying again, cry for 20 or more minutes, repeat. I finally nursed him and let him fall completely asleep before putting him into bed and that worked.

Last night I gave in and tried a bit of tylenol and nursed.

I don't want to start a bad habit with nursing again in the middle of the night since it took so long to get him over that. But I don't want to give him tylenol every night either. Any words of wisdom? What could it be? How should I handle it?

Re: No longer STTN! Teething? Hunger? Something else?

sounds a lot like my DD when she's teething. Which she is cutting her second tooth right now and it has been h ell! My dd is very clingy when she's teething and doesn't want to be put down and wants to sleep with us. We have come to the decision to allow these things for the few days/week that she's in pain. If sleeping next to me makes her pain even a little less - it's what I will do. Then when she's done cutting the tooth we will make sure to get things back to normal. HTH

Re: No longer STTN! Teething? Hunger? Something else?

This happened to DS #1 when he started to teeth. I didn't want to, but I gave him Tylenol at night. It was the only thing that soothed him. He was waking up alot and we did a modified version of CIO (he cried usually for no more than 20 minutes and it wasn't a steady cry). After that he slept fine. Perhaps you can pick Henry up and not nurse? Would he go back to sleep if you just rocked him? I know you don't want to start any bad habits but if it is for a few days it might work. Otherwise, can your husband go in at night so that he doesn't look for food?