Taking 2 hours to settle after night wakings. Help!

[le]

My 21mnth old ds has always taken a lot of training to sleep properly - a spirited child whos sleep patterns change every couple of wekk but this time we are stuck in a rut.

She was ill for about 3 weeks but is now ok but durung that time she has got use to falling asleep with someone there (it took me months to get her to fall asleep on her own but now we  are back to square one). I am 5mnths pregnant with the next one and can't bear the thought of starting all over again with pu/pd. Dh is no help.

The worst thing is that now most nights (we may get 1 nights full sleep but never more than that :evil: ) she wakes between 12pm and 2 am, not a regular time, and it takes around 2 houns to settle down. She will lay in her cot tossong and turning , scream the place down if I try to leave. I managed to leave after an hour last night but an hour later she was still calling for me and it tokk another hour to gt her to settle down.

Her day time routine is:
6.30-7 wake up/breakfast
10.30/11 nap (2 hours)
1 lunch
5. tea
6.00 bath
6.30 bed

[jessica and emilys mummy]

My 23month old dd is doing this,has been on and off for months.
Might be worth changing nap to afternon.I found that a bath in the morning was better for her as it seemed to keep her awake longer.
We don't have a problem putting her to bed,just the middle of the night waking causing a problem.
What I've tended to do in the last couple of days is giving her a drink of water,then wuietly saying I'm going to get some more and slightly shutting the door,she's seems to just fall asleep.
I know the problem is overtiredness.If she doesn't nap in the afternoon,she'll wake up during the night,just screaming.I'm expecting it tonight as she would not sleep today and ended up going to bed at 5.45pm :shock:  :shock:  :shock:

WIll keep eye on this in case someone else can come up with something else.

[bellasmim]

Hello,

I am afraid I don't have much advice to give as I am in exactly the same situation and was just about to post a message when I saw this one!

My DD is nearly 21 months and has been waking around 12 - 2am and screaming.  Sometimes I can go in and and lay her down and quietly say 'it's ok, mummy is here now go to sleep...' and she'll pop off.  Other times she screams if I so much as look at the door and I have to take her out of the cot and cuddle her for 20mins or so and then put her back to bed.  Quite often we will hear from her again within the next hour or so and have to go through it all again.

I just don't know why she is doing it but it is happening more and more often and I am sooo tired. 

I too will check in on this to see if anyone can offer some advice!

I'll be thinking of you both....

Kate

[le]

Thanx for the replys.

Tried later nap yesterday, she went down well and slept for nerly 2 hours. BUT cos she only woke at 3pm she did not want to go to bed at 6.30 :evil:

When she did finally sleep at around 9pm :twisted:  that was it for the night - at least she did not wake up.

Anyone else feel like they are swapping one problem for another!

[Estee]

hi, im so glad someone else is having this problem my dd is 21 months and settles fine on her own when i put her to bed but she wakes around 1.30-2 and just  cries and cries if i try to leave, in the end i have to put her in our bed, even though she doesnt want to come in our bed,! i get so worked up  though standing in her room for 40 mins trying to sneak out, its easier to just put her in my bed?
Has anyone any suggestions on why she may be waking? I think she may be hungry because she always asks for a bottle,, but if i do give her one she ends up bringing it back up :?
i'll keep checking back to see how your all getting on, Estee x

[jessica and emilys mummy]

I took Emmily to the drs last week to see if he could do anything.
Turns out she has a really nasty ear infection,deep inside :oops:
He said sometimes it doesn't bother them during the day,but when they're laying down,after a few hours the pain starts up.The reason I hadn't noticed much of a change is because she cries all the time anyway so I didn't notice a difference.She was also not playing around with her ears or giving me any other signs.
Thought I'd mention it as dr said it's quite common in this age and is easily mistaken for molar pain or general sleepnessness

[le]

We have now had 3 days of not waking    (but I am going to go to bed v. early tonight just incase that is it :!:

It seems to me that no matter what the problem ,teeth, medical, or milestones their sleep pattern is the first/only sign.

I remember when ds first started to stand on her own she would not sleep for weeks :!:

[Lavinia]

Oh boy am I glad to have read all these posts.  me and my dh are out of our mind.  Gracie has always been an excellent sleeper going to bed at 6.30 and waking at 7am.  What a blessing.  All this stopped 7 weeks ago when she was frightened by the fireworks at bonfire night.  After a couple of weeks she calmed down and was more back on track but she is waking 5 nights out of 7 and it take us 2-3 hours to get her to sleep.  She must be exhausted - we are!! 

I'm really at my wits end and don't know what the answer is.  it does help to know that other parents are going through the same thing.  Is this just a phase?  If so, does anyone know how long it lasts?  Gracie is still having a nap during the day about 1.5 - 2hrs.  We have stopped putting her down between 6 and 6.30 and instead try and let her tell us when she's ready (we've had some progree with this and she's almost always still in bed by 7pm.  It does seem to make it easier to fall asleep). 

I'll keep watching to see if anyone has any inspiration.

Happy Christmas everyone - I hope you get a good nights sleep!

Lavinia

[Lavinia]

I have an update. 

I decided to speak to my health visitor today to see if she could throw any light on my dd sleeping habits.  She made a number of really useful points.  She felt that from 18 months onwards toddlers are much more active in their sleep and can find the cot restrictive.  She thought that if a toddler was suddenly waking at nightime then there could be real benefits in putting them into their own bed to give them more space.  She said in her experience, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in these cases. 

We always go into Gracie as we go to bed and tuck her in.  The second piece of advice she gave us was to stop doing this.  To cover her when we put her to bed and then not to go in at all unless she was distressed.  I never really thought that we could be contributing to the problem ourselves by covering her up with a blanket and thus disturbing her. 

The third piece of advice was that given Gracie got her teeth early that she could be teething with molars despite the fact that at 22 months this is generally quite early.  With that in mind, I've been scooting on the internet and found a really useful site
http://www.teething-babies.co.uk/teething-process/teething-chart.html
which shows which teeth come and when. 

As I'm sure you have all already checked to see if your ds/dd is teething, so have I, but sure enough today when I looked again there they are two white spots in her bottom gums.  Gracie's sleep has been disturbed for several weeks but worsened much more over the last couple.  The health visitor said that teething pain is much worse for them at night as any pain releif is usually waring off just after midnight and hence the regularity of the night wakings. 

I'm now praying that my dd wakings are as a result of her teething and that hopefully when they finally come through, things will get back on track.  I hope this is useful and that some of you find a tooth coming in your ds/dd mouth.

[AbbyJ]

I am going through a similar situation with my 21 mo old and am at my wits end!!!  She has been waking up around 2-3:00am for the past 2 weeks and playing in her crib for up to 3 hrs!  She had tubes put in her ears about 3 weeks ago due to chronic ear infections.  She had always been a great sleeper, but the chronic ear infections really messed that up and now we don't know what we are dealing with.  I know that she is getting some teeth which could be causing the night wakings, but then why is she completely content to play in her crib? We've offered motrin, but that doesn't seem to help at all.  She's not hungry or wet--but obviously very overtired as she is a BEAST during the day and only naps for about an hour. 
We are also wondering if it could be developmental, but could that last this long?
She also might be having some nightmares, but once she's awake, she's completely content to play in her crib (though very loudly at times.)
I hate to complain after reading some of the other postings about crying babies in the middle of the night, but I am so frustrated that she is keeping up the entire household with her antics (including our 3 mo old son.)
any suggestions?