How/ why can she do this?

[belindarose]

Can anyone please help me think of reasons why and how my 15 mo DD can be awake for hours at a time during the night? Last night was a record 3.5 hours. She had a total of 7 hours sleep (and is now having a mammoth nap). These night sessions are NOT FUN. If I leave her she screams the house down. She wants to be held but just sits, sucking her thumb, with open eyes. It's driving me totally insane. I've posted about this before, but just fishing for any more thoughts. How can she stay awake so long? 3.5 hours of sitting in silence?? (with some breastfeeding interspersed in desperate hopes of getting her back to sleep). Last night's episode may have been triggered by DH putting her to bed (I had to go to a meeting) and him attempting to settle her the first time she woke up. But probably not, there's not really any pattern, she does it if I put her to bed, just not usually for quite so long!
She has either one or two daytime naps, totalling about 2 hours and starts bedtime around 6pm. Usually asleep by 7pm at the moment.

[notasausage]

She wants company. She know's how to get it. She stays awake, you stay with her - job done!

You have to stop sitting with her when she wakes. Explain to her before she goes to bed that if she wakes and it's still night time you won't be sitting with her as usual and mean business. She will understand more than you think - even at 15 months.

I know controlled crying has it's fans and it's haters but I would suggest some version of it that works for you. It's horrible listening to your child screaming but it is a very effective means to an end. I never left DD for more than 2 - 3 minutes and each time went in, picked her up until she stopped crying then put her straight back with a firm - go to sleep. Yes she would scream but eventually she realised it was game over and went back to sleep.

Have a look at the book New Toddler Taming. It has a section on sleep but is very enlightening on how toddlers learn to push your buttons!

Good luck

[belindarose]

I want to disagree with you, but am sure you're right. I just really can't handle the screaming though and will definitely not be able to do any form of CC.
My Toddler Taming is an older version and does have some interesting points, as well as some very dubious ones.
I think I have to night wean.

[Teleaddict]

Just want to agree with notasausage that I think the only way will be to stop sitting with her. We went through a very similar experience with my DD at this age and we had 2/3 nights a week when we would be up with her for 2 - 3 hours. In desperation we ended up trying to sleep on her floor to make her go to sleep but it just didn't work and she would want to play! In the end one morning at about 4.30am when she had been awake for 3 hours I just thought 'what I am doing?!' (I was 14 weeks pregnant at the time!) - said to her firmly 'it's time to go to sleep' and left her room. She screamed / cried for about 25 minutes and it was horrendous listening to her but I kept repeating to myself 'she needs to go to sleep' and in the end she did. We kept this up for the next couple of nights when she woke up (after going in to check on her) and she cried for about 5 / 10 mins each time. She has slept through since then and I am so glad that we did this. However, I fully appreciate that your situation is complicated by the night feeding and that controlled crying isn't for everyone.
I just wanted to share because it worked for us and now at 22 months we have a DD who sleeps through most nights.
A good book that I can recommend is by the Millpond Sleep Clinic, I think it is called How to get your child to Sleep and it has lots of different ideas to try, other than controlled crying. It also has specific case studies to refer to for night waking that might be useful. Also, whatever you decide to do then I think the key thing is to be consistent.
Anyway, sorry for the long post - Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

[thisisyesterday]

what kind of time does she normally wake?
perhaps bedtime is too early?

what happens if you breastfeed her as soon as she wakes? am thinking perhaps if you "get" her as soon as possible she may be sleepy enough to fall back to sleep?

i would def recommend the no-cry sleep solution by elizabeth pantley. we used it with ds2 and it was a really nice gentle solution that involved no crying at all!

[spotofcheerfulness]

We had this situation a while back with DS awake for hours on end in the night. The advice we followed (and which worked within 2 nights) was to put him to bed an hour later than usual and wake him an hour earlier and stick to the usual nap time in the day. Essentially he was in the bed too long and we had to 'take back' the two hours that he would spend awake in the night. Exhausting for the couple of days it took though as when you're up with them in the night you want to lie in with them as long as they will in the morning!

CC might work for some in this situation but it wasn't appropriate for us as DS simply wasn't able to sleep -he wanted to but just wasn't tired as he was getting his hours in elsewhere.

[girliefriend]

I think if you sit with her and intermittently bf her you are giving her plenty of reasons to stay awake, sorry but if you want this to change you will have to be consistent with the comfort, kiss, cuddle and then back to bed. I imagine you would only have to do this a few times for her to realise night time is for sleeping!!! I don't know how you or your dd function with such a lot of broken sleep - I would be such a misery!!! Does she sleep much during the day? Is she maybe overtired or over stimulated? Sometimes too much going on in their busy little lives can wake them up in the night IME.

[belindarose]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'm a bit tired to take them in at the moment so will read properly in the morning (or later tonight if I have a long waking!). Two answers to previous posters though. I don't think she's getting too much sleep. Always up 6.30am at latest and only about two hours naps in day. Someone asked what happens if I breastfeed her straightaway and yes, I often find this can 'catch her' before she wakes up properly and she's asleep again much quicker. This, of course, makes it harder to contemplate night weaning!
She's a very happy, active and lovely baby during the day, even today on so little sleep!