Help, dd awake at 2.30am, why wont she sleep?

[marne]

For the past week my dd 16 month old has woke at 2.30am, she is wide awake, jumping up and down in her cott and wants to get up. Shes always been a bad sleeper but in the past month she has been sleeping through (up till now). Nothing has changed, she has the same routine. Why is she so awake? Please help, i need my sleep!

[Lonelymum]

I take it you don't feed her or give her any incentive to wake up in the night?

[colditz]

Ahhhh, mine did that, he would wake up at midnight and want to play.

Ignore her if she's not crying, if she does cry I would suggest CC.

[marne]

She somtimes has a drink in the night but only if i cant shut her up, she makes herself sick if i let her cry for more than 2 minutes so cant let her cry herself to sleep.

[Lonelymum]

I fyou can bear the sick you should. You really shouldn't give in to her. She needs to know that night time is for sleeping. I expect I wil be shot down in flames now but anyway.....

[Twiglett]

let her make herself sick .. its a battle of wills

dont talk to her, go in clean her up (it might work if you make her bed with more than one set of sheets with a layer of waterproofs in between so you can do a quick change

lie her down and leave her

and whatever you do, don't feed her in the night

[Lonelymum]

Phew glad you agree with me Twiglett.

[marne]

Tried it she was sick all night, felt realy mean, hate cleaning up sick, even after i pick her up she still chucks up.

[Pinotmum]

My dd used to do this. I would go in and lie her back down and sy "it's night time, go to sleep" firmly and quietly and then leave. It took a while but she got the message. That was until no 2 was born and then it all went to pot again - hey ho

[Lonelymum]

Well, pick her up before she is sick then (I don't blame you, I couldn't deal with that either) but then do what Pinotmum suggests. She has to be told it is night time and time to sleep and she has to be put down still awake (but calm) so she knows when she wakes up that she has to go back to sleep again.

[marne]

Dont say that, trying to get dh to agree to having another. Going to have to get tough on her, but its so hard.

[Lonelymum]

Does she have long daytime naps? perhaps you could limit the nap to a shorter time so she is really tired when she goes to bed. sometimes you just need to break the habit.

[marne]

she has an hour and a half late morning, is that too much?

[Lonelymum]

Depends. My ds1 used to sleep for 3 hours but then he wasn't great at night either so perhaps that isn't a great example. Ds3 sleeps about 2 hours every pm and sleeps well at night so it all relative. But you could try limiting her nap to one hour and see if that helps. You have nothing to lose!

[marne]

Thanx, will give it a try and see what happens,anythings worth a try.