Loud Busy Noises of DC

[Josiegirl]

I have a new sweet 4 1/2 mo dcb and I love him to bits. But every loud noise startles him and if it doesn't stop immediately, he'll start wailing. The very 1st day he came he took a lot of short cat naps because he kept getting woken up. I don't have another separate room to put him into. But then the next 6 days he came he did better each day, seemed to adjust well to the unexpected bark of my dogs, the screech of a toddler, the phone ringing and he was getting into some longer naps too. Then I got sick and closed for 3 days of work, a weekend and 1 more day of work. The past 2 days he's been here, it's been terribly difficult. He's fussy, wants to be held most of the time, can't soothe himself to nap when he was doing so well with it before. The noise is bothering him again. I had a VERY overtired 5 yo come in after K today and wow, can she carry on when she gets in that mood. Well, the poor baby didn't know what to do, he was scared to death and crying, she was tired, cranky and screaming, definitely had some Calgon take me away moments today.

Any suggestions on how to help this poor baby adjust to the noise and hopefully get back into a better rhythm like before?? The terrible thing is that 1 of the toddlers knows screeching has become a hot issue and so now does it for the attention.

[Ariana]

Most of my kids start out this way at first unless they are not an only child and are used to some chaos. The only advice I have is to wait it out and hopefulky he adjusts again. I think being off probably set him back a bit so it might take longer to get him back into the swing of things.

When I worked in a toddler room we had a toddler that wailed continuously throughout the day. It got so bad we wore earplugs. After two weeks he stopped. Then he went to China for a months vacation and came back and it was infinitely worse! All of the bad habits (napping on mom at 18 months ) were right back as well. It was HORRIBLE. He eventually adjusted again.

[Josiegirl]

Thanks Ariana. I feel bad because it feels as soon as he settles himself down for a nap, something happens to wake him up again. And he was doing so well!! Dcm says she's noticed that dcb cries when being dropped off at her sister's, which he just started doing too. So maybe his little brain has developed enough now that he's going through these changes. I do hope he adjusts very soon because you can just tell this dcf is golden!

[Josiegirl]

Well, what a switch around today has been. Dcbaby has been so happy and content and fell right to sleep when I laid him down.
Now I just have to figure out why 2 yo dcg refused to nap today and 16 mo woke up screeching after 45 minutes and refused to go back to sleep. Actually 16 mo has been doing this for a couple weeks now.