Hello! I have a 15 month old DD who has a sleep 'problem' which seems to be a bit unusual - I have searched here and found a few other people posting about it but no solutions.
For almost three months now DD has woken practically every night (there was a period when it was down to two nights in three) for two hours (very occasionally longer - 4 hours was the record, and last week). It's not the same two hours every night, although it usually falls some time between about 10.30 and 3. During that time she tosses and turns a bit but doesn't scream or cry, doesn't want to play, lies there quietly but awake.
I used to sit in with her the whole time (she is in her own room) but because I cope less well with this wakeful period than she does I've been doing the 'gradual withdrawal' method and am now out of the door. Now that she can't see me she does complain more than she used to, but still I can creep away a little earlier to get some sleep.
I don't expect her to sleep all night (though she used to and it would be nice if she did) but I am worried that this is becoming an ingrained habit and I'm rearing a future insomniac. Most days DD is not obviously tired as she tends to make up for her two hours by sleeping later in the mornings than she used to (waking now at 6.30 to 7), but sometimes she is, which is another reason I'd consider it a sleep problem. She has one nap, normally an hour and a half, each day and falls asleep very easily at 7 as she is tired then.
Should I just be patient and wait for this to pass? Have I failed to teach her to settle herself to sleep - and if so, how can I do this? And thanks if you've read this far :)
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15-month-old lying awake for two hours at night
sproutpudding · 07/06/2011 19:33
Hello beachavendrea, thank you very much for your post.
I do go straight into her, it's a bit of a reflex I think as I tend to jolt out of sleep and leap into her room. If I think she's teething I give her something for that and a drink of water, and then I say goodnight and leave. I am trying to hold back a bit, you are right, I probably do rush in to fast.
She doesn't want to play. She just lies there, and shifts about from time to time, a bit like I do when I can't get to sleep. Later she gets cross and complains, but I don't go in to her, I just say the same boring things from where I'm sitting, now outside her room.
Teeth may be playing a part, I just don't know. Her teeth take months and months to come through and only seem to bother her sporadically, but I can't be sure. Anyway, whether I give her something for this or not, and whether I give it as soon as she wakes up or after a while, it makes no difference in so far as she still stays awake for two hours.
How long was it before your DS got over that patch?
Sorry that you're having very early wake-ups, by the way. I've been there too and it is painful. I hope it passes soon. 
This is an OLD OLD thread, but I've come back to it to write what happened for any future desperate sleepless mother of a 12- to 19-month-old who has a similar problem to my DD, lying awake for two or three hours each night (but not really complaining and not wanting to get up). I spent hours trawling the internet and found other people who had asked about exactly the same thing but nobody ever replied from experience and the posters never returned to write what had happened to them. (I began to fear they'd all died of sleep deprivation. 
) So this is for anyone in the future searching as I did.
Anyway, my DD is now 19 months old and we are all still alive and finally, finally things are better.
We tried a lot of different things but actually life improved a great deal when I just accepted that I could do nothing about it. I stopped sitting up with her and instead started bringing her into bed with us when she woke up and could not sleep. At first this improved things a little but after a couple of months she was back to the two to three hours of lying awake plus kicking both DP and me in the head for most of that time (she likes to sleep horizontally; our bed is not large). So then I remembered some large sofa cushions from a sofa which died, and so I changed tactic, and when she woke I'd give her a drink of water and make up a bed with the cushions and some blankets on the floor beside her cot back in her own room. Normally she'd settle down quietly and I'd doze off and maybe not wake up until some hours later (I'd get a bit stiff as it wasn't very comfy) when I could crawl back to my proper bed; sometimes she'd grumble and I'd wake up a few times, and sometimes she'd get frustrated and throw her toys out of the cot, but compared to what life had been it was bliss.
Something which may have helped was that she weaned herself off the breast when she was 16 months - before that she'd fed herself to sleep in the evenings. Instead in the evenings I did the 'gradual withdrawal' method I think they call it, putting her to bed and sitting with her until she slept, but moving the chair a bit further away every few nights, until I could put her down, say good night and walk out of the room. (We had done this a couple of months earlier with her daytime nap and it had worked well.) Perhaps it made her more confident about falling asleep.
But, future sleep-deprived reader, I cannot be sure this made any difference. I suspect that it was teething-related, as she's just cut her last tooth. She's older now too, and less anxious I think about the dark and being alone in it. Now she wakes a couple of times most nights, but usually with a drink of water and a pat on the back she settles back down and I leave her. Probably one night in four I have to sleep on the cushions, but it's always improving. (Sometimes she only wakes once!)
So, there is hope, things will get better, but you probably just have to wait it out. The best thing to do is find a way that you can get lots of sleep, and don't worry. Good luck, and best wishes! 
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