Waking in the night screaming

[GillL]

For the last month or so dd (7 1/2 months) has been waking between 1 and 4 times in the night screaming. There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with her as she goes straight back to sleep as soon as I put her dummy back in her mouth. She has slept through the night since about 5 weeks. Does anyone have any ideas why she has started doing this? I'm starting to really struggle at work because I'm so tired and broken sleep gives me killer headaches.

Is she teething?

I think youve been quite lucky that shes slept through from such an early age. Their routines and sleep patterns do change and can often be linked to milestones in their lives. Has she started moving around more?, or just mastered something new?. Has you bedtime routine changed? How does she go to sleep?

She's been showing signs of teething for a while now but doesn't seem to be in any pain and there are no signs of teeth that I can tell.

She started crawling a few weeks ago and has just started pulling herself up to standing on the furniture.

Our bedtime routine hasn't changed. Some days she goes to sleep when I give her the last bottle of the day and she stays asleep when I put her in the cot. Other days I put her down awake and leave the room. She either puts herself to sleep or I have to go back up a few times to give her the dummy when she cries.

Hi GillL - my dd was the same about this age - like your she slept through very early and then at about 8 mo she started waking - it was teeth and the fact that she couldn't find her dummy. My solution was that I got loads of dummies and left them in the cot - she has about 8 now and sometimes I hear her wake and then laugh as she finds a dummy and goes straight back to sleep.
The only other time she wakes and screams is when she has a cold coming.
HTH

The only time I actually witnessed her waking up screaming she literally screamed the second she woke. She didn't even open her eyes and look around first. Sometimes she screams for a couple of seconds and then goes back off to sleep by herself. I could try putting some more dummies in the cot but I don't think she'd find them. Half the time I can't even see them! I'll try it though and see if it helps. Thanks.

I would say a combination of teething (they dont have to be visible to be causing a problem), new movement and the most likelt culprit, testing, that is, testing to see how many times mummy will come back and find my dummy.

If you can definately rule out teething, you could try more dummies or you could get rid of them altogether.

You could try controlled crying, pick up put down, or read Elizabeth Pantleys 'No cry sleep solution'. I actually ordered this but plumped for the CC.

I think I'll try more dummies first and then look into the sleep training if that doesn't help. I rely on dummies too much for a quiet life to get rid of them completely

Thanks all.

woo did this and it turned out to be earinfection with teething. He was otherwise well in the daytime. homeopathic teething granuals were good, but so was calpol, if not somewhat contraversial. stopped after a week or too (see biting thread!)