Daughter wakes up screaming most nights - 20 months old

[Ohbequiet]

Hi, was hoping for a bit of advice and help or even some experience!

My daughter is 20 months old, and for the last month or so, has been waking up screaming her head off, for no discernible reason. She goes down to bed between 7-8pm with no issues but seems to wake at around 12-1am crying. Nothing seems to console her, we offer milk, check nappy, comfort, lie her down next to us, or even give calpol in case of pain but nothing works. Eventually after trying to settle her back down and screaming for around 30/40 minutes, she wants to get up and play and one of us have to go downstairs with her for an hour before coming back up. In this period she is fine by the way, playing, talking and eating normally. The cry itself is terrible and doesn’t seem like a normal ‘I need attention cry’, but loud and shrill.

This is happening now pretty much every other day and I am losing the will to live. The high pitched scream is waking up the whole house, her older brother and is affecting our sleep. I did consider maybe teething or night terrors but despite comfort and medicine, she is repeating the same thing every night, it just doesn’t calm her down! I also accepted that this may have become a learned behaviour as she gets to come out of the cot, but honestly the cry is so so bad, we have to do anything to stop it.

For background, she is healthy, eats well, and has a good nap every day between 11-1pm. Her behaviour and temperament is absolutely fine during the day, she’s calm, playful and a joy
to be around. It’s just nighttime where she is turning into a banshee!!

Tonight she’s been awake since 2.30am, and slept for 20 mins downstairs since.

Any help welcome, I’m desperate!! Thank you.

I know it isn't helpful but from 18 months onwards they can start having nightmares. Is that a possibility? Just thought because of the loud piercing scream

Night terrors?

But also in our case it turned out to be sleep apnea.

Do they snore loudly? Dribble?

Could be night terrors - very common around this age.. my son only had 2 but both times was inconsolable! He told me the next day what ‘happened’ in the night (there was a rhino in his pocket apparently!)

I think this is pretty normal I have the same so do a few friends with 18-30m olds.

I think it's developmental / separation anxiety.

We just kinda went with it. It was utterly horrendous at one point about 3m ago butttt It is improving and she sleeps through 5/6 out of 7 nights now.

Her bedroom has a cot and a double bed.
She often cannot be comforted in the cot so we do take her out and cuddle her if she's distressed. We sit on the bed or prop ourselves up with her.
In desperate days one of us slept in the room from 2 because you could get her back in the cot and sleep in the bed because if you caught her early you could shush her back to sleep

General rules we agreed (as my DH started going rogue and would either be playing and laughing 😑😑😑 or "giving instructions" like "that's enough. Go to sleep now!" " Stop clapping!" 🙈😅😅😅

• we always keep her in her room. She isn't allowed to leave until "wake up time"
• we do low lighting/lights off even if we are all wide awake 😅
• Minimal chit chat soothing sleepy sounds/singing

-reinforce it's night time /time for sleep. They understand at this age.

We gave milk at one point - which meant she was "only" awake for 30 mins Vs 2/3 hours but was a short term fix with long term hassle as she started waking for milk. 🙈

Yup look up night terrors. Happens at that age... Apparently they are not really awake even though they appear to be.

Also, if she continues having very long wakes at night maybe try seeing if shortening her naps will help?

Thank you all for your help and suggestions! I will take them on board. I’m thinking night terrors but eventually she does wake fully and then thinks it’s time to go play. Because she’s not really verbal it’s really difficult to figure out what it is that she wants.

@GreatGateauxsby We would love to keep her in the room but the crying is so terrible we would rather take her out of the room and allow her to fully calm down, rather then attempt to soothe her there, as it almost never works. This also has added benefits for her eventually so it’s kind of a lose lose situation for all of us.

@SausageCasseroles no dribbling/drooling or snoring. She does tend to cough at night which disappears in the day, and she did have some congestion a few weeks ago but otherwise completely fine. Not sure if laying down is causing mucus/irritation in the throat.

@Mmmmpavlova I will try shortening the naps, usually they are around 90 minutes but often what happens when I try to wake her early is that she wakes and goes back to sleep, or cries because her sleep isn’t fully complete yet. I try to put her down a bit earlier and try a later bedtime to counter this, but I’m not sure if it’s working.

My eldest was hard to settle at bedtime but he definitely didn’t do anything like this! I thought sleep improved as they got older but it seems like we are going backwards. She slept beautifully as a small baby! I suppose with age and brain development there are bound to be phases of difficulty in their sleep pattern but I am really struggling at the moment. The cry/scream gives me such anxiety because I know it’s coming and I won’t be able to stop it.

Yeah one of mine had this for 5 solid weeks but then suddenly stopped. It was night terrors. No reason for it but every single morning around 2 or 3 this would happen and it is exhausting.

Night terrors. I wouldn’t take out of the room though, she’ll quickly cotton on that she gets to play for an hour in the middle of the night.

i remember my exmil telling me about exdp starting night terrors around this age, where he would wake screaming with a piecing scream. He grew out of them unless he was unwell with a temperature then he’d have them again way into his teens.

Sounds like night terrors- my DD had them from about 2-4 years old. Thought it was some kind of seizure initially as literally nothing calmed her down, but then realised she was still asleep as they were happening. We would have to wake her up, then resettle her almost immediately. Different to nightmares (which she also had from time to time). If it’s any consolation she’s now a pre-teen who is embracing the “teens sleeping until midday” trope!

Agree that it may be night terrors. It may also be her general development of fear. My daughter was similar at that age, she talks a lot but couldn’t verbalise what was going on in the night when she was upset, but eventually said it was because she was scared of the dark. She had always slept better in a dark room until then, but we got her a light and that helped a bit. She had also started to be afraid of other things around that time (loud noises, certain bugs etc.) and think she did also get some nightmares too.