20month old screaming at 3am

[Nonameusername]

My 20 month old has always heen a very good sleeper usually sleeping through for 11/12hours. Since mid March it’s been around 5am wake ups so I was glad the clocks were changing. Fast forward to June and waking up time has been between 3am and 5am for the past few weeks. I am exhausted. When she wakes up she’ll usually start by calling mum, then scream the house down until someone picks her up. On the occasions I manage to settle her without picking up (not very often) she’ll be quiet for a few mins and just start again. It’s like she’s just ready to wake up at that time because when I bring her to our bed or give in & go downstairs she’ll stay awake until she’ll need a nap at around 9am. She self settles at bedtime which is usually 6.30-7. Have tried pushing it back doesn’t work. Cot is still in our bedroom and moving to own room isn’t an option at the moment due to renovation. I do want to try controlled cryinng but it’s just impossible with me laying in the bed next to her. Please let me know what you’ve done to help your toddler sleep through again.

Is she eating enough during the day and especially I gave evening to stay asleep?

I was wondering this so I’ve started giving her porridge around half an hour before bed and it’s made no difference at all. I work full time in a demanding job so it’s really draining me now! Can’t see it being a regression as it’s been getting worse since starting in March.

This isn’t very helpful but DS had his own room at that age and at 21 months we moved DS from a cot into a bed and it vastly improved his sleep. We would have moved him earlier as he was climbing out of the cot but we had a holiday booked and wanted him in a cot for that. Like you describe he woke earlier and earlier because life is just too fun when he could see mummy and daddy. I think you may just need to ride it out. He may also be a naturally early riser, if DS makes it past 6am we consider it a lie in. I’m awake now because the 11mo has stirred and whilst not crying I can’t get back to sleep.

I believe sleep needs do reduce quite a lot at around 18m - what are the naps like? How much sleep is she getting in 24hrs? It might be that you need to cut her nap and push back bed time and have a consistent morning wake time to try increase sleep pressure (and be consistent for at least 2 weeks)
eg my son is almost 20m old and was the king of split nights. We worked out the max he would sleep overnight was 10.5 hours even with a split night when we let him sleep in a little longer to catch up and he was having a 2 hour lunch nap. We cut the nap to 1.5 hours, pushed bed to 8pm and he now generally sleeps till 6.30am. Even if he has a bad night we wake him at 6.30 so he knows that he can’t have a lie in or a long nap to try catch up and he needs to sleep at these set times - nap and over night.

Will try & hold off till 8pm tonight & see how it goes! Thank you!

We had a very similar issue at the same age. Unfortunately it got worse and she only stopped crying when husband went on the floor. She then stopped going down on her own or at nap time! Does she nap? Could you try cutting it? We hired a sleep consultant and she advised to cut nap to an hour. That has worked well. We also did controlled crying but it worked after 1 night and she didn’t sound distressed, just annoyed we weren’t doing as she wanted.

Do you think I could do controlled crying while sharing a room with her? Can’t wait to get her room sorted. 😩