15 month old has been waking at night, and is now hysterical and inconsolable

[alingenf]

My daughter has been STTN since she was about 9 months old.  I finally dropped the dream feed around 11 or 12 months and she's still slept beautifully all night long.  However, for about the last 3-4 weeks, she has been waking at least once every night, and the last 2 nights have been strange, and quite frankly, a bit scary.  In the past 2 days, apart from a very long and shocking tantrum just before bath time (same hysterical, inconsolable crying!) on Monday night, she is in good spirits. She has gone down easily at bedtime, but then will wake up and SCREAM.  It's like she is in pain, because the cry is so different - it's very intense and lasts for about 30 minutes.  She can't hardly be consoled, even with holding her, rocking her, trying to nurse her, taking her into another room, etc.  So, we've managed to squeeze medicine into her cheeks during these crying episodes, keep holding her until she finally quiets, and put her back in her crib after 45 minutes to an hour after it started.  Then, she'll wake again later, usually in 2-3 hours, crying (this makes me think it isn't so much pain-related, and more something mental).  Sometimes she's crying hysterically again, sometimes not.  Because I have no idea what's going on with her, I try to nurse her and put her back down.  Sometimes she goes down, other times she cries as soon as I put her back in her crib.

Complicating matters is the fact that I am weaning her now as well.  She's down to only being nursed before bedtime, and then when she wakes at night.  I realize I've gotten into a habit of nursing her back to sleep ever since vacation, and that's probably part of the problem.  However, I have no idea what all I'm facing since this hysterical crying has started - is it teething pain?  frustration over being weaned?  something related to development milestones? 

What am I missing?  Any suggestions for where to start to try and get her back on track?  My first thought is stop nursing her altogether, and just get on with having her recognize that nursing is over and that's not an option. 

[lolsyb1982]

No real advice I'm afraid but going through something similar with my 17 month old and it's horrific. She has woken up for the past 6 nights a few hours after bed and screamed for between 1-2hrs. It's like you say hysterical and she's inconsolable.
Her sleep has been pretty dreadful for a couple of weeks now and I'm thinking it's extreme OT? She has pain meds at BT so don't think hers is pain related.

How is her sleep in the day? Could they be night terrors? Or have you tried meds before bed to see if it stops her waking up?

[deb]

I'm going to go with canines/eyeteeth. Josie slept thru all her other teeth coming in, but the canines came in, one....at....a....time, over THREE MONTHS, and EVERY night around 2AM she would waken moaning and crying and eventually sobbing for Orajel (that was the summer she learned to say it - for us this took place from 16-18 months or so, maybe 15-17, but you get the idea). We started giving her pain meds at bedtime and just having a syringe of ibuprofen/nurofen already filled and ready to go when she woke; had it occurred to us, we would have given her a "dream med" (like a dream feed) so she wouldn't even have woken (maybe).

I'd say try giving her some pain meds even before bathtime and see if it makes a difference in how she goes down; if it does, you know that pain is indeed the issue, and you can treat while she's still distracted and not too tired to cope with it perhaps. (Caveat: this just helps confirm whether it's pain, but doesn't rule out a different pain source like tummy trouble or ear infection - but it's useful at least for helping partially nail down a cause for the distress.)

Let us know how you get on.

[alingenf]

I am doing just that - trying to see if Pain is part of the equation.  So, I put her down tonight, and gave her Ibuprofin before bed.  She went down easily, like she always does.  We will see how the rest of the night goes..

That said, she threw a terrible FIT tonight when I tried to bathe her and make her sit down in the tub.  She immediately went into the hysterical, inconsolable crying mode and resisted mightily.  I tried to hug her, talk to her, ignore her - no change.  So, I gave her to hubby who got her dressed and put her down on the floor.  She continued with the screaming for about 10 minutes, then finally wandered into the bedroom where we all were sitting with my 3 year old daughter.  The 3 year old gave her a hug, and held her hand and that snapped her out of the tantrum. 

The cry was the same - I'm recognizing it now, and I think it's a tantrum that she's been throwing in the middle of the night these past 2 nights, and twice during the day as well.  She throws a fit too when hubby goes into her room in the MOTN and tries to soothe her - she kicks her legs wildly, thrashes and rolls around, and protests loudly until mommy comes and gets her. 

What's the strategy for dealing with nighttime tantrums, with a 15 month old who can't talk?  Is it appropriate to leave her in her crib while she's screaming like that?  She fights being held when she's in this mode, so is putting her down and leaving her for a few minutes at at time, coming back to reassure her every 5 mins or so - is that appropriate? 

[alingenf]

So, last night was a little strange - she threw the temper tantrum during bath time, with the same hysterical crying.  We gave her pain meds at 7:30pm and she went down beautifully.  Woke up at 10:30pm screaming hysterically - tried to settle her in her crib by just rubbing her head, but she threw a bigger fit.  It was like she didn't want to be touched at all, and the hysterical screaming followed.  After letting her be, and standing by her crib for 5 or 10 minutes, she finally let me hold her.  She continued the screaming for another 10-15 minutes, then finally settled in my arms.  I nursed her briefly, and she went down easily about 11:10pm.  She woke again around 12:15 - it was just "regular" crying - so I went in, reassured her verbally, held her for a minute or two and she went down again in her crib.  She slept through from 12:15 to 7:30 with no more wakings. 

So, does this give me another clue that it's not pain related?  That it's some sort of development/behavior milestone, and she's throwing tantrums in the MOTN?  Any suggestions for how to handle her when she's crying inconsolably in the MOTN?  I absolutely can't let her CIO, but it's not exactly crying, and she definitely doesn't seem to want to be held/reassured/rubbed...

Also, daytime sleep and moods are great.  She's happy as can be.  The only new thing is that she has thrown 2 full-on temper tantrums in the past 4 days, and she's never done that before...

[deb]

Hmm.... does this resonate with you? Nightmares and night terrors.

[alingenf]

I did a little research too on night terrors - I don't think that's it.  When she's in this screaming fit, she still responds to you being there (by pushing, kicking, rolling over), so she's aware of our presence.  I suppose it could be a nightmare - and I guess the best approach there is to respond, verbally reassure her, and just be physically present.  I can try to pick her up, but will just leave her in her crib if she actively resists being touched.   The hard part about accepting that it's a nightmare is that she doesn't settle down at all when we come in - it's like we just amp her up and make her more upset. 

Wish us luck tonight - she had a great day and went down beautifully, with no pain meds this evening.

[alingenf]

I am at a total loss now.  Payton has stopped the hysterical screaming in the middle of the night, but has increased her night wakings to 3-4 times a night.  It usually starts around 11pm or midnight and she'll wake every 1-3 hours crying.  I will go in and try to soothe her in her crib, but that isn't working, and in fact, seems to rile her up and make her angry.  So, I'll pick her up and hold her, which immediately makes her calm, and hold her by her crib for a couple minutes to settle her before placing her back in the crib.  Occasionally, she'll drift right off to sleep, but most of the time, it takes many tries for this to work and I just repeat holding her for a few minutes and attempting to putting her down.  Other times, after trying for 30-45 minutes with no success, I'll go sit with her in the rocking chair for awhile and try again to put her down 10 or 15 minutes later.  Last night, I tried for 1.5 hours hours to get her back down, and no luck.  I ended up lying with her in the chair, and after she was awake and rolling around, I was able to put her in her crib and she slept until the crying started up again at 5am.

I don't believe she is in pain; I don't think this is night terrors or nightmares.  The thought of needing to consolidate her down to 1 nap a day has crossed my mind, but I'm not necessarily thinking that's what's going on because she still takes solid naps (1h - 1h 20min in the AM, and 2h in the PM), goes down super easily, and is happy during the day.  My suspicion is that we have regressed completely toward habitual night waking, and she wants me to pick her up and hold her to help her settle back to sleep.  How do I break that?? I think PU/PD would be tough and actually do more to arouse her and get her frustrated than to settle her.  Should I go in and talk to her for a minute, reassure her, and then walk out, repeating every so often?  Please help - I'm so lost and frustrated!! 

[lolsyb1982]

It could well be that she's getting too much day sleep. I think most are on 1 nap at this age and if not they're probably on one very short cat nap and then a longer one.

You could try cutting back that first nap to more like 30 minutes and see if that helps.

[alingenf]

Just a quick update in the off-chance that it helps someone:  the next day we cut her AM nap to 40 minutes and the night after I posted this, I had to be out past bedtime, so hubby had to put the girls to bed.  Low and behold, she slept all night long!  I put her down the next night, she woke 1x at 4am, and fussed for 30 minutes before going back to sleep (we did not go in).  Then, I was out of town for 3 nights, and hubby had her.  She slept all 3 nights, no wakeups!  Unbelievable.  I've been home for 2 nights now and put her to bed, and she has slept through.  phew.

I think what this tells me is that she was waking and crying out for me, and when I would come get her, she really liked that.  Then, she would fight going back down because she enjoyed being held or comforted by me.  And we got into a cycle where she was waking for mommy loving.  I am pleasantly surprised at the turn of events, hopefully it sticks!