12 mo waking for hours during night

[AlcoholicsUnanimous]

Hi, just wondering if anyone else has experienced the same and has any tips.
My almost 12 mo DD is bf to sleep and we co-sleep, I'm totally fine with both as they've made night times ok for us all, she usually feeds back to sleep pretty quickly.
However, for the past week or so she's been taking about 2 hours to settle at night. She'll feed, seem to nod off, then wake up and walk around on the bed until she seems tired again, then repeat. She's also waking around midnight and staying awake for anywhere from 2-4 hours. Again, feed, get dozy, wake up, roll around, repeat.She's clearly tired but just can't seem to to sleep.
The only thing that's working is if I put her in her cot for a few minutes when she's in the wakeful phase. She'll then absolutely scream, I'll pick her up and she'll feed to sleep. I hate leaving her to scream though. Any other ideas? What do other people do when their baby wakes for hours at night? If I try to ignore her she climbs over me, scratches me etc

[PurpleOneWithTheNutIn]

I'm in a similar position at the moment - dc almost 12 months old, waking at night crying and screaming, hard to settle. I've been giving calpol before bed for the last two nights but it's not a long term (or even short term really) solution. I usually feed and resettle in my bed but there is usually some time of crying, and tonight dc is awake and playing.

I do baby bedtime bath and lotion etc, bottle and bed.

I hope someone has some words of wisdom, but in the meantime you're not alone.

[AlcoholicsUnanimous]

Thanks Purple, sometimes it's enough to know you're not the only one with an almost year old baby that won't sleep. Is your lo teething?

[avocadosweet]

Had this with DD1 - exactly two hours awake then she'd fall asleep. It's developmental, some kind of brain thing going on which meant she couldn't sleep. I dealt with it by co sleeping and trying to doze until the two hours were up! I just tried to ignore the climbing around the bed - had bed guards so I knew she was safe.

[CobsAhoy]

I had a week of this just before DD learnt to crawl, we bedshare so I just tried to bore her back to sleep by ignoring her, which was pretty hard as I did actually find it quite entertaining (at first). Maybe your LO is on the cusp of some new development? In DDs case it stopped as abruptly as it started, fingers crossed the same happens for you!

[scrumptiouscrumpets]

My DS did this, you have my sympathies! It's exhausting! I just ignored him and he'd drop off eventually, if he took too long I'd leave him alone to cry for a couple of minutes which sometimes helped to settle him. It's not ideal but it really got too much sometimes! The crying doesn't seem to have done him any harm. His sleep improved very quickly once he started walking, I think that was what was keeping him awake.

[Lilacpink40]

Have you tried basic comfor
Pop in quick kiss and pat and walk out. Next time just pat, time after walk in room 30 secs next to bed and walk out. No eye contact, relaxed body language , yawn lots, repeat every 10 min until crying stops. It may sound mean but you just need to provide basic comfort and get back out again. Think 'boring, boring, boring'!

[Lilacpink40]

Comfort not comfor!

[Handsoffmysweets]

Could you put her in her own cot OP and leave her to it? I loved co sleeping with mine but found as they got older they wanted to impress me for hours on end at 2am with fancy tricks they'd learned. Having me there seemed to make it too distracting to sleep. Moving them into their own cot sorted the problem as I'm guessing they woke up, got bored quickly and dropped back off. This too shall pass and repeat

[AlcoholicsUnanimous]

Thanks for the advice all. She's also done it before learning to roll, crawl and walk, avodao and Cobs, but now that those major milestones are done with I thought that would be the end of it. Obviously not!

Putting her in the cot, even if I've I'm in the room, leads to an almighty meltdown but she does go to sleep after it, just like you say scrumptious. Reassuring to hear as CIO isn't for me and I feel awful doing it, but we both need to sleep. I definitely need bedrails so I can try to doze while she does her thing. I keep telling myself that there'll be a time when I miss night wakings...