15 month old been waking between 9 and midnight screaming for a month :( Exhausted!

[MegandWesley]

Hi there,

I have joined in the hope that I may be able to get some help with this, I am exhausted and feel like I have tried everything! I'm sorry its long.

My little boy is 15 months old, up until 10 months old he was reliant on feeding to sleep, he woke several times a night so we got tough and did controlled crying (i know this is sometimes controversial) - it worked amazingly, within 3 nights he was sleeping through and self settling happily - it was bliss and he was very content - it was occasionally disturbed by teething or illness but we got through this with cuddles and comfort but always got back in routine once he was better.

This continued until we moved house just over a month ago. When we moved he was very poorly with an upper respiratory infection (moving was hell on earth!) so we didn't do any controlled crying or anything - once he recovered from this he was still suffering with teeth and due to being in a new home when he woke upset we would bring him in with us or downstairs with us until he settled and then brought him back up to bed.

He now seems completely better in himself - has been for weeks, yet despite settling easily at bedtime and naptimes, he is still wakes usually between 9 and midnight and cries and cries and cries - he gets absolutely hysterical, throwing himself around, will not be comforted at all. Eventually after a couple of hours he exhausts himself. Last night he was so bad that I ended up bringing into bed with me, after I had laid on the floor next to his cot for 1.5hrs to no avail - he would drift off but then wake again crying as soon as i tried to leave. Once in bed with me he went on whinging and clambering around the bed for a further 40 mins - until I got so fed up I resorted to putting back in his cot and doing controlled crying - which worked only because he was exhausted.

We have tried going back to our usual controlled crying routine, but he gets him so so so upset its just awful and can go on for an hour or more and then I always end up stroking his hair and him finally giving into exhaustion.

I just don't know what to do, or what is causing this. He is getting lots of molars but seems absolutely fine in every other way and 100% fine during the day. He gets even more hysterical if i try to administer calpol/nurophen and teething gel - which I usually end up doing anyway.

Our new neighbours must absolutely hate us :(

I would greatly appreciate any help or advice - even if its just 'we went through this and it did pass!'

Thanks,
Meg
xx

We're going through something similar with 14mo DD - no advice but lots of sympathy, and the knowledge that eventually TTSP!

When we had trouble like this I got the Milpond book on training you child to sleep and changed dd's cot to bed.

thanks readytoburst

what techniques does this book use?
And how would a bed work for a 15 month old? would it?

My 15 mo does this sometimes - not every night - only thing that might seems to trigger it at all is when he doesn't have enought sleep in the day - and then goes to sleep v quickly at bed time - then seems to wake up all grumpy - I have resorted to giving him some milk before now

It has lots of techniques and works on a sort of case study basis. You go to the appropriate section (eg night waking) and the appropriate age range and it gives you ideas on how to solve it. The other book that helped is 'the baby sleep system'. This has no-cry techniques as well as things like controlled crying. It also comes with a password for their forum where you can get 'expert' support.

I found that when we changed her cotbed into a bed she felt more grown up. I used a bed guard and that stopped her being able to get out.