1 year old tantrums during the night

[soxy]

Dear All

Just wanted to pick your brains and ask some advice about my 1 year old daughter (14 months old).

Before the new year our daughter used to sleep throughout the night for 12 hours if not more each night with no problems at all. Ever since January, having the mmr and this nasty fever and sickness bug she hasn't been able to go through the night without waking up most nights at 4am and it takes us another 2 hours to settle her.

She seems to go mad at the same time every night. We have tried sending her to bed later but this hasn't worked either. She has also recently starting going to nursery settling in sessions which she seems to enjoy and haven't caused her much distress.

We just cannot put our finger on what is wrong with her and why it is taking us 2 hours to settle her before she falls back to sleep again. Her normal routine during the day seems to be fine and she goes to bed without any problems at 7pm, its just the dreaded 4am wake up.

Any help, advice or remedies for tired eyes would be great!

Thank you for you help.

A very tired Soxy!

No answer for you I'm afraid but just wanted to let you know that my dd2 is 17m and does exactly the same. 4am every day without fail - although she normally does go back to sleep pretty quickly. Am watching your thread for good ideas......

me too! my daughter is 17 months and wakes at 4 every night, has a sip of water and then back to sleep.

its infuriating!

Its probably just a bad habit they have gotten into!
DS was always a great sleeper until he got ill aged 2!

We had him in our bed for a week till he was better and then he was a nightmare! He would go off fine but would wake in the early hours and demand to come in our bed (i gave in for a few weeks as was too lazy and tired

DP and I got so fed up of it that one night we just ignored him (not easy as he was crying for quite a while) and he eventually went back off and is now back to being a great sleeper

Unfortunately for us ignoring her is not an option. Dd2 breathholds when she cries too hard and then passes out. I hate the thought of her fainting in her bed instead of going back to sleep.

Thats the hard part of this parenting lark there isnt one hard and fast technique for every child lol.

Hope you find something that works or that a wise mner comes along with some ideas

Maybe pop over to the sleep boards and see if you can get some better replies there?

have you tried wae to sleep method? it basically means you have to set your alarm for about 15 minutes before dd would normall wake (in your case 3:45am ) and half wake her up by stroking her face or whatever other gentle method you can think of. when she starts to stir, you leave and let her settle herself. it's supposed to 'reset' her sleep patterns and should after about a week break the habbit of 4am waking. then you can stop with the alarm and hopefully she should sleep through. a word of warning though, it doesn't work for all babies, i accidentally woke my ds up a bit too much and he just screamed! . he sleeps from 6:30pm -7 am now though so it did work eventually.

sorry wake to sleep method, my typo makes it look like some sort of ancient japanese custom!