14 month old wakes screaming, please help!!

[abby jeannes mom]

I just can't understand what is going on with my 14 months old dd.  Background, her first year sleeping was really, really bad and she relied on me nursing her to sleep (yes, my fault).  At 1-year old I discovered the baby whisperer method and she finally got to sleeping on her own, in her crib, and on occasion all night.  However we are still having problems that I can't seem to tweek or pin-point what is going on with her.  She ofter will wake-up early in the morning, any where from 3-5AM screaming her heart out.  I always wait a few minutes before going into her to give her a chance to get herself back to sleep.  I know she is able to get herself back to sleep because I do hear her moving around and making noises, sometimes a brief cry, several other times through-out the night, and I do not go into her.  The times when she does go to all out crying and I try to console her, I just lay her back down, tell her everything is ok, it's time to sleep.  Sometimes she will go right back to sleep with this encouragement, but many times she will cry her little heart out for as much as 2 hours, and I just don't know why or what to do.  She is a spirted child and the crying is really loud and disturbing, it makes me feel horrible.

We also are still experiencing problems when she first is put down to sleep for both naps and for night-time sleeping.  My husband and I take turns putting her to bed.  We stay with her next to her crib as she is going to sleep.  She often stands up and we lay her back down several times, just as when we started this method.  If we're lucky, she goes to sleep with only a short and brief cry, other times she cries really hard for 30-50 minutes.  Now I know one suggestion might be that she is afraid of the crib.  So I did take her into the crib for play today, and she was fine playing in there for 25 minutes.  Most of the time I was in the room as she played on her own, but I went in and out of the room without it being a problem.  It did not seem like she was afraid of the crib.  Someone please help me out, I'm ready to cave and go back to picking her up and rocking her.

[Jaime]

hi,

i'm going to pop your post over to the toddler sleep board, where you will likely receive much more advice. 

[imsmum]

What's her schedule like?

[abby jeannes mom]

when she was on two naps they were only lasting 45 minutes each, difficulty getting to sleep for both and waking up early for the day about 6AM.  So I recently switched to one nap, it's been a little over 2 weeks now.  She seems to be doing pretty well, as far as not seeming over-tired, with the one nap starting somewhere from 12-1.  This time depends on what time she wakes up in the morning, which generally depends on if she slept through all night or if she was awake for 1-2 hours.  So, unfortunately things have not yet become regular.  The one nap will last atleast an hour, but usually not too much more.  Although yesterday was a perfect day: she slept through all night, woke-up a bit after 7AM, took one long nap from 1:15-3:30, and to bed in the evening just before 8PM - that's what I think everday should be.  However, last night she woke at 3AM, didn't settle back down until 5AM, up for the day just before 8AM, went to nap at 12:45, cried hard before falling asleep at 1:15, woke up from the nap screaming at 2:30, tried for 30 minutes to settle her back down, and finally let her get up at 3.

[cduddles]

This doesn't help solve the problem, but just so you know you are not the only one, I have the same problem.  Your situation sounds very familiar.  I'm interested to see if anyone can help.  I think I'm going to try the blow-up bed method to see if it helps.  It's very frustrating...I can't believe that I'm still sleep deprived when my daughter is 18 months old.  Thanks.

[abby jeannes mom]

Wow, now that I found the toddler board I'm shocked at how common problems with toddlers sleeping are.  I thought that after over 2 months of applying the baby whisperer methods we would be free from these issues or at least not have to consistantly be listening to our lo crying at sleep times, that really wears on me.  I thought, this could not be the way it is supposed to be, what am I doing wrong? Well last night she slept through the night, but was up for the day at 6:30.  Thaat's actually pretty good, but I only got half way through my 1-hour long step aroebics before she came to join me and wanted to crawl all over the step.  I actually finished the entire hour and that's the first that I've even attempted to in a long time.

[imsmum]

abbey jeannes mom-- I just finished going thru something similar with my 17 mos. old--at least I hope we are almost thru it--we've now had 3 consecutive nights of sleeping thru for 11 hours.  A few things that helped us--I know it's difficult when wake up times are all over the place b/c of night wakings but it sounds like you are doing the right thing--try to keep the nap time fairly consistent--I would move my dd's up 1/2 hour if she needed but keep the rest of the day as routine as possible, esp. lunch at the same time etc. I found when sleep was erratic is was really important to keep the rest of the day on a tight schedule.  If you can do something(besides nursing)that will help your dd settle when she wakes at night do it--ie. going in, staying with her etc.  I needed to put my hand on my dd.  I know we all want our little ones to have independent sleep but if doing something gets more rest it's important right now with the transition to one nap because you want to avoid an overtired spiral.  Once they're better rested you can withdraw this.
I found a super early bedtime was key for my dd.  Prior to switching to 1 nap she would go down at 7:45, up at 6:15.  When she started waking for 2 hours at night she would sleep in but only until 7:15--she was still missing one hours' sleep.  She was also having trouble settling at night and would sometimes not be able to go down until 10 because she was so overtired.  By trial and error I found she was happy going down around 6:30-6:45--a challenge because I work full time!  It made a huge difference though because she was now getting a full 11 hours sleep even with the 2 hour night waking.  A few nights of doing that and she's slept thru the last 3.
finally with my dd it was impotant to figure out her best wakeup interval between nap  and  bedtime.  Too long and she's overtired and wakes at night.  With my dd it's 5 hours after nap wake up.  She still only naps 1 1/2 hours so that sets her nap time.  doing that may help you figure out if your schedule needs to be adjusted a bit.
Hope this makes sense.  I also recommend reading dbymom's post "1 nap and night waking" for some great advice from Petunia.