17 month old night wakings - advice please!

[booreeve]

Hello - my 17 month old DS has been a brilliant sleeper for months and months, and from nowhere is suddenly waking up screaming and screaming (it went on for 45 minutes last night) until he gets some milk. He then drops back off to sleep no problem. This has been going on for about 10 days or so. He eats well throughout the day so I can't understand why this is suddenly happening, but just worried that if we keep night feeding we'll set a habit for it. Not sure if I should be topping him up in the night or not - or if I'm being silly for even being worried about it!!! Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Weeeelll. ds is also 17 months old and ALWAYS has a bottle of milk in the night (though it's usually at about 5am so I kid myself that actually he's just an early riser who can be bribed to go back to sleep with milk). I'm sure it's habit in his case, but I'm clueless as to how to fix it. So if you're sure he's not hungry and you don't want it to become a habit, now might be the time to stop.

Does he eat lots during the day? Is he getting teeth? ds has his canines coming and I remember from dd that they did cause quite a lot of discomfort. Or, possibly, an ear infection? That can be quite painful when they are lying down.

Not much useful advice. But lots of sympathy. ds has never been a good sleeper, and I'm still not used to it. It must be a lot worse if a previously good sleeper goes bad!

Could well be canines. My 18month old has really been suffering with these buggers, worse than the molars.

The pain in teething happens as the teeth move up through the gum- not just as they break the surface IYSWIM. Just worth a mention because I only found this out recently and a few times have thought "it can't be teething because there's no obvious sign" other than the screaming of course...

I posted almost the same thing as you a couple of months ago
DS went through about 2 weeks of screaming in the night and I didn't have a clue what it was as he has slept 12 hours solidly from 7 months. I didn't give him anything to eat or drink as I knew he had plenty during the day, and just went back in to stroke his head and reassure him every few minutes until he settled down again. Took about 45 minutes each time but then the screaming stopped as suddently as it started.
I think it was teething problems (molars cut through a couple of weeks later) but I didn't want to start giving him anything to drink as I didn't want him to get in the habit of waking up and getting something.
I'd just advise to keep reassuring him but keep the room dark and your voice low. I just repeated the same thing over and over again - something like "sleepy time, night night".
Good luck!

Booreve I feel you pain! I have been suffering with exactly the same thing and posted about this last week here. The Crazy Night Wakers link within that thread is very helpful.

I have been experimenting with things and have not had any screaming for the last few days but that's mainly because he's been waking up with a heavy cold instead. Grrrr. I don't know what the answer is I'm afraid, just wanted you to know you have my sympathy!!!

Thanks for all your advice and support! It may be teeth, but we've never really had any problems from teeth before. It's just odd that it's a bottle that will placate him. He eats and drinks plenty during the day so in theory there should be no need for extra night feeding but then again with small folk you never know! I had thought that he might be going through another growth spurt and therefore needing extra at night - sigh I just don't know