After several consecutive nights of Nick waking in the middle of the night screaming and crying, and me having a mild anxiety attack over said screaming and crying...and Todd not knowing what the hell to do with a wife AND child that were up all night screaming and crying, I finally figured there had to be something going on with Nick.
He has proven to us time and again that he can be a fantastic sleeper. We went through several months straight, after he finally turned a year old, of easy going 7:00pm bedtimes, that resulted in a full 12+ hours sleep, with a happy baby waking up in the morning. But every so often we had set backs that resulted in a few nights here and there of not so great sleep...cutting his 1 year molars; a cold; cutting his eye teeth; another cold; going on vacation or spending a few nights away from home...all contributed to disruptive sleep, but nothing that we couldn't get him back on track with quickly.
But for some reason, when he woke up the other night at 12:30am and proceeded to cry and scream like he was being tortured for over TWO HOURS, I knew something wasn't right.
Enter mom panic.
Naturally I started googling every reason possible for an almost two year old toddler to be waking in the night screaming. And most signs pointed to teething, night terrors, or ear infections. Seeing as he had just come off of the worst cold he's ever had (in his short little life), I was positive he had an ear infection. Thank God for the pediatrician advice nurses and nurse practitioners. Seriously, let's steal a little of Lindsay Lohan's regained fame & fortune back (because lord knows she does NOT deserve it), and give it to some real heroes -- nurses!
I digress.
The advice nurse was super sweet and helpful on the phone and made us an appointment to come in, because I was oh so certain that Nick had an ear infection and that's why he was screaming his head off all night.
The nurse practitioner did a quick look-over of my happy, cheerful, bouncing off the walls toddler who gagged, turned red, held his breath, and then gleefully clapped in approval when the exam was over, and said "he's fine". And "ears look great!" And without even thinking about it, I let out a breathy "damn." And quickly followed it by "I don't mean that I want him to be sick...I'm glad he doesn't have an ear infection...it's just..." and before I could finish, Frank (the nurse practitioner) interjected "you just want answers. I get it...I have two toddlers at home. The not sleeping, sucks."
No truer words have ever been spoken to me by any other professional in my 30 years of life.
The not sleeping TOTALLY sucks.
So why wasn't he sleeping?
Well, Frank then suggested night terrors. Which Nick has definitely experienced his fair share of. And it's frightening every time, except for the fact that with night terrors, he ends up calming himself back down because he never truly wakes up...just cries in his sleep.
This was not night terrors.
And I was still scratching my head (and yawning and rubbing my eyes profusely).
So last night...Todd and I were working on very limited sleep (he more so than me because he gets up for work 3.5 hours before I can even lift an eyelid), but we had to use a groupon that Todd had purchased to a little Hibachi joint in Fairfax. Hoping to have a romantic mid-week date night, we asked my parents to watch Nick. Of course they gleefully accepted (God love 'em...we could not survive without those two, I tell ya what), and said "go do whatever you want, just leave his jammies with us and we'll take care of dinner, bath, and get him all set for you to pick up when you're done."
In my haste of having not put away any of the laundry over the last 2.5 weeks (but who's counting), most of Nick's clean pj's were hanging out at the bottom of a laundry basket that I couldn't quite get to. So I grabbed a brand new pair of 24 month pj's out of his closet - so new they were unwashed even, that's how desperate I was - to have mom put on him, just figuring "they'll be a little big, but no big deal".
You see, up until last night, all of Nick's 18 month pj's were still fitting just fine. And any 24 month pj's I put on him sagged at the crotch and ankles because they were just way too big/long.
But when we arrived at my parents house to pick him up, Nick was wearing the 24 month pj's, and they fit him like a glove.
The middle of the night crying and screaming culprit? Oh, just my baby shooting up 2 inches, that's all.
Holy crap! Talk about a growth spurt!
So now I feel like a crappy mom for letting him cry and scream when he was quite literally having growing pains. Poor, poor baby.
If he keeps growing at this rate, he's gonna be taller than me before he goes to elementary school. Which his daddy will say is a good thing, since the ladies like tall guys. But I'm not sure our toddler clothing and shoe budget can fully support a new wardrobe every couple weeks.
Either way, I'm just glad we finally know what the problem was. And I'm happy to report that last night? He was back to his full-night-of-sleep self. And we're all feeling much more rested today. :)
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