Almost 16 month old - grumpy and waking in the night

[pamelat]

Hi all, still struggling!

Have posted before about my beautiful and lovely but very high spirited and high maintenance DD. (Next time I want a boy )

Basically for 6 months she cried, fed and never slept. From 6 to 12 months we did well, happy, sleeping and life looking good.

We are almost at 16 months and struggling again, the last 3 months in particular have been very difficult. She is volatile, throws ttantrums (if I need to change her, get her dressed, remove something dangerous from her grasp etc etc. I stay calm (most of the time), I talk to her, I distract - sometimes this works, usually not.

She started nursery (3 days a week) last week and things have gone from bad to worse.

She seems to like nursery (other than crying at drop off time) and I am told she is happy all day. However, she only sleeps 45 minutes instead of almost 2 hours previously. She is therefore tired but I am told most of the children do not sleep well at nursery.

The problems are at home. She is waking up to 3 times in the night, including being awake crying for 2 hours last night. In the days off with me (Thurs & Fri) she is grumpy, clingy and not sleeping very well (just doing the 45 minutes a day, like at nursery)

I feel sad because these are my days to enjoy spending time with her but she (and I) are miserable.

I appreciate that she will be feeling insecure/anxious etc because of being left at nursery but just struggling with the disturbed sleep and vocal complaining. Will this pass? When does it get easy?!

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but could it be molars?

DS went through a similar thing at that age (he's only 18 months now, so just coming out of it really) Also only been at nursery a couple of months.

Hopefully it's just a phase (aren't they all and she'll be better soon. DS always gets exceptionally grumpy when he has teeth problems. Neurofen is my saviour!!

Completely about to say the same thing Sheeta, my DD is 15 months and doing almost exactly the same. It's her canines that are emerging but I'm pretty sure her molars are imminent too - and boy is she GRUMPY!!!
Tantrums I also find hard, do you find it's worse if you say no or don't do that?!! awful isn't it. I've reconciled quite a lot of it in my head because i think most of the tantrums are frustration based, she can't communicate exactly what she wants to tell me, but she CAN understand a hell of a lot, so it's pretty annoying for her.

do you think she's waking in the night because of pain? Have you tried anything like Calpol?

Try to just spend time with her, sometimes my DD just sits on me and watches TV quietly when she's feeling clingy - i'm just trying to roll with it.

also, can you get nursery to try getting her to sleep more? I'm having similar conversations with our childminder, tired children are NOT fun..

Hope this passes for you - and i hope it helps to know you definitely AREN'T alone in all of this!!

Sounds like my DS of almost the same age. He's only going to nursery one day a week (all we can get, on the waiting list for more) but he's started biting (initially when BF but yesterday he bit my arm really hard because I was talking to someone and not playing with him).

He's also waking in the night, although he definitely has his top molars coming and has just gone down with a cold. Last night we decided that sticking with our routine of only one night feed was worse than feeding him so he started the night in his own bed then when he woke at 11 I took him into the guest double bed with me, where he slept pretty well. When he stirred he only asked for milk once (and only had a quick feed) and the other times he just wanted to snuggle up with me. This morning so far although he's still clingy he has been noticeably more cheerful and playful.

Co-sleeping hasn't worked for us in the past but I actually had a pretty good night last night (much better than the ones where I listened to DH settling him for an hour then got up myself later on at least once) so we're now looking for ways to make this work for all of us.

Hi all, I did consider teeth but calpol does not seem to improve her mood so kind of ruled it out? I think she is mainly over tired and cross at me (???) for leaving her.

My DH says that she is only like this with me and that she has a special "whine" for me. Its hard because I dont want to be hard on her, she is only one FGS! I am not a complete wuss, but I will let her have a cuddle, have the occassional mini milk get out of the pram etc etc. He is much strict with her. I think its good to have the combination? I don't spoil her, I just love her and baby her a bit, but she is very young still.

I really want to sort the sleeping out, and hen I think everyone will feel a lot lot better.

I tried co-sleeping and it was a disaster for us. tried controlled crying and didnt feel very in control of it

just wanted to add that calpol has bugger all effect on DS, and it takes neurofen to actually make a difference. Once I've dosed him it's like a magic trick, you can literally see it working

Really, I may try that. I used to alternate calpol and nurofen when she was younger but have kind of forgotten about nurofen. Had really bad afternoon and it got to me . Am even considering working an extra day a week for my own sanity

She woke after 45 minutes but I managed to get her to go back off and she had another hour (which was brilliant news) and I was hoping that we would have an ok afternoon.

She woke crying and grumpy (gave nurofen, before reading this but it was the last spoon in the bottle. I shall buy more tomorrow). We nipped to Boots for literally 10 minutes and she screamed and screamed as she did not want to go in the push chair. A kind lady actually came up to me and said "I feel for you, it brings it all back, I remember those days" which made me feel a bit better. At the same time though it must have been noticeably bad for her to need to comment.

I keep trying to remember that everything is just a stage.

We then went to see my own grandparents for 30 minutes and she was awful. Whinging and clinging to my leg and generally being grumpy.

I did tea and bath before DH got home and she cheered up and by the time he got back she was fine!! If it was teeth would the upset not be constant? She is so up and down.

We go on holiday on Saturday and I am dreading it.

actually good point come to think of it i haven't been able to find the calpol for about a week, it's been nurofen i've been giving her!
and yes it can be up and down, was reading last night that teeth pain can be completely inconsistent, they forget about it and then do something that triggers it again.
i only did controlled crying when i was at my lowest point and it was because i was at rock bottom that it worked, not sure it would have otherwise!!!
you are doing all the right things, and what matters the most is that she knows you love her - which she obviously does!

we have the same thing here - grumpy all afternoon after his nap, and then magically when DP comes home he's the happiest boy in the world. happy that he feels better, but know it's just the different person thing that's doing it.