To get angry when toddler wakes up

[averylongtimeagolongerago]

I feel really bad about this now but we’re having awful sleep at the moment because toddler has teeth coming through and last night (and for several nights) she just keeps waking up over and over. I get her settled back in her cot then she’d wake again over and over,

I ended up getting really annoyed and snapping at her. I didn’t do anything but just felt so so pissed off.

I can’t co sleep with her as she doesn’t settle at all.

Yanbu to feel angry but yabu to snap at her, that is doing something. Is there another parent at home who can help out?

I'm not a morning person and fine getting woken up so hard. You're not alone and the guilt is rubbish.

Yeah feel so so guilty this morning

I would snap at my toddler for all sorts of things and feel super guilty afterwards. They do push us to our limits!

Well which is it? There's a big difference between angry and annoyed! YABU if you're showing anger, but YANBU to be annoyed/irritated in the middle of the night, and say something like "Oh be quiet and get back to sleep".

We all get/got snappy with our toddlers at some point, especially when you're so tired. Do you have a partner that could share the load?

The poor child is in pain! And is way too young to get up and find her own pain relief isn’t she?!

Are you a single parent? If not get your partner to deal with her if you can’t comfort her when she is feeling unwell without being nasty to her.

Oh bore off. Post your medal why don’t you? Don’t forget to polish it first.

YABU a little, I'm sure you've had tooth ache and suffered badly with it. It's a god awful pain.

If you can't keep your patience why isn't her dad helping?

Did you use any teething gel / pain medication? If she keeps waking up she is probably in pain.

Poor kid. Sometimes I feel internally a bit annoyed by being woken up but I never take it out on my children

Dad can’t really help, she gets so distressed with anyone but me she just screams the place down and so I can’t sleep anyway, and we have an older child too I’d prefer not to be disturbed. It’s just soul destroying getting up over and over and then being unable to go back to sleep because you think you’ll be woken. It’s been going on for feels like ages.

Poor child is in pain and can't verbalise it. Have you tried sleeping with toothache when paracetamol doesn't touch the pain?

How old is the toddler? At 17 months my DD who was slept very well suddenly started waking in the night screaming her head off. It took me 3 hours to settle her back into her cot, only for her to wake up an hour later. I got her into my bed for the first time ever (she has never ever settled in a shared bed) but she just went straight to sleep. So that's what we did and now almost 3 months later she is back to sleeping through.

I think it was just a sleep regression but initially I was convinced she was having bad dreams because of how upset she was when she'd wake up. She was also teething. It didn't just impact on night time sleep, she suddenly started to take ages to go down for a nap/didn't nap as long and took ages to go down at night.

Don't worry about making a rod for your own back etc, just do what you need to do to settle them and then figure the rest out later. It's so bloody hard dealing with night wakes with a toddler, I found it so much more stressful than when she was a newborn and I was off work!

Sleeep deprivation is dreadful. Don’t feel bad.

This

It’s wonderful there are perfect parents about. How do you do it?

Anyway OP it’s normal to be infuriated by an endlessly waking toddler. Obviously she can’t help it, so you want to avoid snapping if you can, but everyone gets pushed past their limits sometimes, don’t bother feeling guilty, just resolve to try and count to 10 next time.

Of course dad can help, he's just making excuses.

She is 17 months @heroinechic !

I have tried bringing her in my bed but I keep disturbing her and she just keeps tossing and turning and waking up. It worked with my first and he’d go to sleep (although I wouldn’t) so I know it can help, it just doesn’t with her, she does seem better in her cot.

Thanks for the kind posts. I’m just so tired a lot of the time and worried about managing this little sleep and work next week.

The OP knows this smartypants, but it doesn’t solve the horror of being endlessly woken.

The smugness..

When my child was going through this he wouldn't co sleep so what I ended up doing was bringing a spare quilt and pillow into their room and sleeping on the floor beside them. He seemed comforted with me being there and I got ok sleep ( better in my own bed of course) .didn't last too long and I was able to get back to my own bed eventually

It's not toothache. They are two entirely different things.

I know it’s horrible for her. It’s just when you do calpol, neurofen, teething powder, drinks, cuddles, singing, rocking, just get to the king of ‘WTF can I do now’ point especially when you’ve been doing that on rotation for 2 hours.

I honestly cannot fathom how growling and snarling at an upset, tired toddler in pain is acceptable.
I would be upset if someone snarled at me in the night if I was unwell and couldn’t help it. And this little one is barely older than a baby.

Who said ‘growling’ or ‘snarling’? No one. Only you did, so at least stay accurate to OP’s account.

There is ‘acceptable’ and there is ‘understandable’, and OP is coming on here for help as she is beyond tired, struggling and feels guilty. So step down from your high horse and start acting like a decent human being.