16m old wakes up early and HYSTERICAL

[pelicanpaul]

This has been going on for a few weeks now, she's always been one to wake up from naps grumpy but this is a whole new level, she's absolutely beside herself. Sometimes I offer bf which does stop the screaming but not for long and if I try and put her back in the cot afterward she goes nuts. I'm trying to stop bf anyway as I'm pregnant and it really hurts.
Normally we give up and take her downstairs and put cbeebies on .The problem is she is STILL tired. I normally have to give her a nap in the morning to get her through the day and another in the afternoon but yesterday she refused the morning one and napped 11.15-2.30 instead. I thought that might actually help but 5am like clockwork she's up screaming again.

Do you think there's anything I can do to help? She went to bed at 7.30 last night- is that too late?? Is she waking up overtired? We normally have to go in at least once in the night to put the dummy back in, and every now and again I hear her cry out but she normally settles herself.

Sorry I'm rambling now. 16 months of crap sleep agh!

[Blueredballoon]

I feel your pain, we have a very similar situation here. I've managed to push it back from 4.15am until 4.40am but that's still ridiculous. My DS screams so much he is constantly making himself sick.

He goes to sleep fairly easily at about 6.45pm/7pm, but then it's this crazy wake up!

[pelicanpaul]

Oh god it's awful isn't it, I just don't understand what wakes them up at this ungodly hour?? Solidarity anyway.

[FATEdestiny]

7.30pm is a good bedtime, if you are going to change it I'd push later - 7.30pm bedtime routine for 8pm sleep for example. But making it later may mean adjusting the timings of daytime naps to accommodate.

It is worth bearing in mind that 11h overnight sleep is average for a baby/toddler having naps. That's an average too - so the range of 10h-12h are perfectly normal.

Therefore a 7.30pm sleep time could give you 5.30am wake up. I wouldn't consider wake up "early" unless it's closer to 9h over night - so 4.30am for a 7.30pm bedtime.

Some things you could try:

A late evening "reset" might help. When you go to bed, wake baby. Do a nappy change to ensure a proper wake up and feed. Then resettle. The idea is that come early morning, when sleep is lighter, that she she is a little more comfortable in her nappy and a little less hungry/thirsty

Moving daytime naps to make bedtime later. It's perfectly reasonable for a 16 month old to still be having 2 naps a day. Limiting the AM nap helps keep the PM nap established. A later afternoon nap (say 2-4pm) will assist with making bedtime later.

Converse to above, his might be a sign that she is ready to move to 1-nap days. The idea is to power through the morning and push naptime after lunch. I'd then probably give a few weeks over to lengthening naptime. Cosleeping for naps can help with this. A 12pm - 3pm / 4pm would be ideal.

Another option is to just accept early morning cosleeping. Loads of families do this. Just being baby in with you when she wakes in order to get an extra hour or so sleep.

One final thing - it helps to have the child happy to be awake in her cot. So working on going from fully awake to asleep in the cot helps with this. Also having a (safe) toy or two in there. I also don't rush to get toddler if she wakes and isnt crying. Have her get used to being awake in her cot and not upset.

[pelicanpaul]

Thanks Fate, I've tried bringing her into our bed but she just keeps crying! It's so strange, if she woke up mildly disgruntled or just chatting then I could accept that she was ready to get up but she just seems so tired and angry still!
I think she's definitely almost ready for one nap and if she does have a nap in the morning I always wake her up from it after 30/40 mins. Interestingly she always naps for a lot longer in the afternoon/lunchtime when I'm looking after her - a good 3 hours normally, with her dad or my mum it's normally only an hour and a half.
I thought maybe she was hungry but that doesn't seem to be it either.
She self settles fine now and has a toy rabbit she's had since birth, and the dummy of course. She chucks them out during the hysteria though!
Agh I don't know what she's upset about!