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[quote=Anonymous]My 20 month old son has banged his head to fall back to sleep since about 9 months old. As he has gotten older and stronger - it has gotten louder and more "injurious" (he breaks the skin on his forhead) so we moved him 3 months ago to sleep in a pack and play so he would have a softer surface surrounding him. We also put a 3" mattress in the pack and play to further cushion it.

I had him evaluated 2 months ago by both early intervention and a private OT, PT and speech therapists to see if any had suggestions for what we could do to make him stop b/c I was tired of my pedi blowing my concerns off and I wanted to make sure he was on track given that the head banging could be a red flag for a larger issue. Everyone agreed that he is on track for fine and gross motor skills as well as speech. He is a happy and very engaging little boy who has good eye contact, imaginative play, very social, etc so no concerns about a larger issue such as Autism, etc. However all of them also agreed he has mild sensory issues b/c of the head banging and he walks on tip toes sometimes (he is now fitted for orthotics which have reduced his toe walking while he wears them dramatically). The OT found that he has low registration so he toe walks and bangs his head for stimulation.

I can't put my finger on what triggers the head banging which adds to my anxiety of trying to stop him. We use a video monitor to watch his sleep patterns and generally what we've found is that he bangs his head for less than 5 minutes to fall asleep for his nap and will usually fall asleep within 10 minutes. He will often start banging again 90 minutes into his nap to try and put himself back to sleep - sometimes successful but often not. He does not usually bang his head to fall asleep at night - he will sometimes play happily in his pack and play for up to an hour without banging his head which baffles me - I would think he'd be frustrated and start banging to go to sleep quicker. He will usually sleep for about 10-11 hours and we'll hear him banging again when he wakes up - but again not always. Sometimes he'll wake up and just play happily. We don't think he bangs throughout the night once he is asleep.

He is doing OT - we do a ton of exercises applying pressure to his joints to try and mature his nervous system. We've tried a weighted blanket without any consistent results as well.

I did a search in the DCUM archives and saw someone suggested going to the sleep clinic at Children's so I left them a message yesterday. If anyone has any other experience or suggestions I would really appreciate it. A lot of what I've read online said kids usually outgrow this but I have a hard time believing that and would rather try any many things as I can to get him to stop - ugh.

Thanks:).

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