From bad to worse, please help

[Shayleesmom]

Hi there,
I try not to post and take advice from other posts and for the most part this has worked great for me; there is a lot of good advice and a lot of great information.  But now I am ready to ask for help:
My LO has been on 4 hour EASY since 8 weeks and caught on quite well.  We've had the usual issues but nothing too bad but for the last week my 20 week old has been acting totally out of character for her at night, so much so that I dread the evenings and putting her to bed.  She is very hard to put down to sleep now, even though we have not changed her routine at all.  She goes into her crib really well but then cries for almost two hours before she settles.  We let her cry in 5 - 10 min intervals before we go in and have reverted back old habits just to get her to sleep!  Last night she feel asleep on my husbands chest but then she was up again in two hours!  I got up with her (this is always seems to be around 2 am) and she, not cried but screamed, for 35 minutes straight well I tried to hold her and pat/shh, she wouldn't even take her paci which usually calms her down.  When she did stop crying I waited 20 mins and then tried to put her down and she started all over again.  Before all this started, she would sleep from 9 pm to 5 am straight, feed at 5 am and went down for another 4 hours.  But lately it is almost like she has forgotten everything we have worked so hard to teach her about sleep.  She is still her usual self during the day and always happy, but night time is awful and lat night the worst.  Between the two of us crying I felt utterly helpless!
Please help with any suggestion that you anyone may have.  This is the first time that I have felt like this and doubting myself.
She has recently cut her first two teeth on the bottom, they are not all the way in but she didn't seem to have any issues with them, no fever or fussiness that I noticed (at least not during the day).  Could this be the problem?  And she just started to roll over in the last two days.  Her routine is as follows:
E - 9 am (7 oz formula)
A - until 10 am
S - 10 to 10:30 am(she is a lousy napper but always wakes happy so we have decided to leave it at that for now)
A - until next feed
E  - 1 pm (7 oz formula)
A - until 2 pm
S - 2 to 2:30 pm
A - until next feed
E - 5 pm (7 oz formula)
A - until 5:30 pm
S - 6 to 6:30 pm
A - we try to do light activity and wind down, bath, read books,visit with daddy,  light playtime nothing too overstimulating
E - 9 pm and this is also part of her wind down with dim lights in her room with soft music and then after her feed she gets drowsy, heavy eye lids and I put her down still half awake.  In about 30 minutes she wakes up, we wait to see if she will go back to sleep on her own, she doesn't her crying becomes more feverish and then the whole night begins.

Please, any help or suggestions would help me right now.  I feel like a terrible parent when I can't even comfort her to the point that she stops crying/screaming.  I just don't know what else to try.

Thanks

[Aarismom]

Hi there!!

So, you say it's sudden? I'm wondering...have you ruled out sickness? Maybe an ear infection? Recently my lo has been getting sick...she was on the mend (so I thought) when she had her last wellness appointment last week. Before that appointment she would be fine for naps during the day, maybe a little fussy, but she kept doing the nightwaking thing, sometimes waking at 3 am and not going back to sleep until 4 or 5. Getting her down for the night was a battle, and she'd do some waking and crying a few hours after going down. We thought it was just her getting over her cold and trying to get back on track. I had an inkling that something just wasn't right, but I figured it was just a bumpy road on the way to recovery. During her wellness appointment, low and behold, I found out she had an ear infection. She showed really no signs of it before (pulling on her ears, feverish, etc.). Now she's been treated and she's back to her old schedule again.

If that's not it, something I would try first is an earlier bedtime for awhile, maybe like 7 or 8. Catching up on lost sleep from the last week or so would definately help a little. It may change up her day schedule a bit, but it might help overall. You say she's always been a lousy napper...an earlier bedtime might fix that too (or it might not). It may be that her napping habits are catching up to her...sleep loss is cumulative, and rears its head in ugly ways sometimes. Sleep begets sleep...so the more sleep she gets when she needs it the better. The pm side of the night is full of deep sleep, which is important for its restorative qualities. It may be hard to get her down earlier, but if you can, it would help her. Wouldn't hurt to give it a try for a few nights.

Hope this helps a little!

*HUGS*
Sonya =P