Hysterical and inconsolable night wakings 12 month old - nap dropping issue??

[Aimeemumofone]

Hi,

My 12 month old has just started waking at night completely hysterical and it takes about 2 hours til he'll go back to sleep which mostly involves me carrying him. My back is a wreck. He's been sleeping through the night consistently from about 8 months with no problems. About a week and a half ago he dropped to one nap - early I know but he was simply refusing afternoon sleep even in the car or pushchair. He's now sleeping one very long nap 2.15 / 2.30 hours and about 10.5 / 11 hours at night. The first week of just one nap was fine apart from only sleeping 10.5 hours at night, but he's just started some very hysterical night wakings. He doesn't seem overtired duringthe day, and nothing has happened to his nap, he goes down fine and wakes up happy. His easy is

6,30 wake
8.00 breakfast
11.00 / 11.30 nap
1.30 / 2.00 wake
2.30 lunch
6.00 dinner
7.30 bed

Does it seem like he's overtired or could something else be going on?

[Shiv52]

Any sign of 1 yo molars?

You could try bed about 7pm to see if that helps?  He may just need a chance to adjust to the longer A times. But a 13 hour day on such a good nap is pretty good. I'd try a slightly shorter day and see if that helps!

Well done you guys getting to one nap!!

[<Catherine>]

Could the night wakings be night terrors? What sort of timings do they occur? Does he respond to you at all?

NTs are often caused by OT.

[Layla]

I suspect it might be from the long A time before bed. I would also try an earlier bedtime to see if that helps. To be honest, I bit the bullet with DD2 around this age and went straight to 1 nap and she was also sleeping well (1.5-2hrs) but then she went into the OT zone, started waking up at night, etc.,. and I went back to 2 naps but had to really shorten her morning nap to 45mins in order for her to take her afternoon nap. We kept that up until she was close to 18 months and then she was much better at staying up and awake for 4.5-5hrs  .

[Emami]

You could try bed about 7pm to see if that helps?  He may just need a chance to adjust to the longer A times. But a 13 hour day on such a good nap is pretty good. I'd try a slightly shorter day and see if that helps!

^^This.  Even though you're getting good naps I'd shorten his day given he is still quite young for one nap.  At that age my DD would do roughly a 2.5hr nap and a 12.5hr night, it was amazing!  Her days didn't lengthen up to 13hrs until more like 18 months as Layla said.  Moving to one nap is a big jump for them even if they're ready for it.

[Aimeemumofone]

Thank you for all your responses...

It does seem like he's having some kind of night mare / night terror. The first two mights he woke at 1.30 and last night it was 10.15. He seems pretty scared and when i pick him up he starts pointing and nodding or shaking his head and throwing his beloved bunny on the floor He will only go to me and will howl if his dad tries.

His morning nap is so late I'm scared to shorten it as he will have been awake so long beforehand (5 hrs ish) and would surely need the long nap to reboot, am i right? I tried putting him down earlier just now and it didn't work and if I leave it as it is there really is no time to fit in another nap in the afternoon.

Ill try earlier bedtimes, he'll be going to bed much earlier tonight anyway as we move house to a different country - 2 hours behind - tomorrow. Joy! And have to leave really early in the morning. The poor thing has moved about a lot as my family is in England, we live in America and my boyfriends family is in Guatemala so he's done a fair bit of time zone changing, I think this might be why he dropped the nap so early??

[Emami]

Where are you moving to?  Good luck with that!  Hopefully he will settle quickly to the time change.

Interesting idea about the travel... My family is also in England, we live in America, and DH's family are all a flight away within the US. We've moved too since DD was born.  She also moved to one nap early, I never thought about that stuff maybe being a factor!

[Aimeemumofone]

Yeah I read in a few places that travel and time changes can kick start developmental leaps. I'm pretty sure I've seen it happen in him as well in the three long trips weve made back to the Uk from the states. We're moving to Guatemala now so thankfully that jump isn't too big. And hopefully with some earlier bedtimes I can avoid anymore NW!

[McSquirtle]

I read this late last night as we had exactly the same thing! He was asleep for 7:15pm and at 11:30pm I heard the worst scream followed by hysterics! I thought he'd fallen out of the cot. He settled once I picked him up and swayed with him for a while but each time I tried to put him back he started again. He was worse with me there so I left the room once I'd calmed him, and after 30secs of whimpering he settled - luckily. We have just dropped to one nap too, and yesterday was particularly bad as he only did 1.5hrs, whereas he has been doing 3hrs. So I'm torn between nightmare, OT or teeth.
If I was you and this has been happening a while, I'd pull bedtime back an hour or half an hour and see if it helps. Also medicating before bed if you think it might be teeth.
With us I think it might also be a bit of SA kicking in as he whimpered at his nap too today and he's been my shadow for a few days lol. Hope it improves for you x

[Aimeemumofone]

That sounds exactly the same mcSquirtle. I'm sure it's all boiling down to OT. He just won't switch off when I go in to him though. It's almost getting worse too, now we've moved house he has gone back to two naps because of tiredness from the journey i think, which I was pleased about. But the second nap is only 30 mins so I'm guessing he's OT (especially asthe other day he fell back to sleep when I fed him) but I literally CANNOT get him down to nap any earlier in the afternoon. So his easy looks like this...

6.00 wake up
9.30 / 9.45 nap
11.00 / 11.30 wake up
4.00 / 4.30 nap for 30 mins
4.30 / 5.00 wake up
6.30 sleep

3.30 am ish wake up screaming - finally falls asleep after about 1.5 hours being awake. Probably from exhaustion.

I'm really not sure where to go with this now. Any help would be hugely appreciated. Thank you