8 month old refuses to sleep

wrote:
Hi everyone,

Well my little guy still wont sleep. Only now he seems to be rebelling
even more. In the last week he will not go down and seems to fight it
off even more. Sleeping in the same bed doesnt help. Even benedryl has
no effect. He has always been a horrible sleeper but its just getting
worse and worse. He was colic and a bit high need but this is
rediculous. When he starts to drift off he actually jolts himself
awake. Hes extremely curious and active. There has got to be a way to
get him to lay down. Any ideas?

He sounds a little over tired. Sometimes when mine were over tired they
settled only if I really moved them a lot. I would make then stay in my
arms but I would either do a fast dance in circles with a lot of up and down
movement, or I would hold them against me and sit on a hard chair and rock
my body back and forth (towards the ground and then sit back up) rather
fast, or I would literally bounce them up and down in my arms. When I get
over tired I get jittery and can't fall asleep. I of course know to just
lay there long enough but I think an over tired baby that is jittery really
needs that movement.

My only other thought would be to try some sleep training but if he is over
tired that will be a bit hard on him.

I didn't really have any trouble with my second son but one thing we did
with him is this. My mattress happened to be on the floor so I would lay in
bed and read to my older son and Luke would just crawl (or walk when he was
older) all over the place. I just kept reading to Hunter until he fell
asleep and by then Luke had either crawled over and fell asleep or was ready
to nurse and go to sleep. Had I tried to put him to bed at the same time I
started reading to Hunter I'm sure I would have had problems. Perhaps
totally babyproof his room and have yourself a comfy place to sit on the
floor and read to yourself, or out loud books to him so he hears your voice,
and just let him move around. Start about 30-40 minutes before his actual
bedtime. I'm not sure if that will be helpful for you or not? That wasn't
really a solution to a problem for me, just how things worked out.

Good luck


--
Nikki
Hunter 4/99
Luke 4/01
EDD 4/06