at end of tether with 20mo DD who will not sleep

[drivingmisscrazy]

for the second night this week, over 2 hours of screaming, crying and hysterics and still not asleep. Have tried leaving her to cry - but she starts almost hyperventilating. Have tried staying with her until she falls asleep - but she wakes immediately you creep out and then will not lie down, fights and kicks. She is shouting 'up, up, up' and crying, or she yells for a book or the sofa. She is not (currently) ill, other than being exhausted.

This has been going on since the end of August: she started nursery 2 mornings a week - this seems a bit extreme as a reaction.

Should we try controlled crying? Please, any ideas? Am really starting to lose the plot

Is she in a cot or bed? Sleeping bag?

What's the routine?

You must be exhausted too.

Sorry, that sounds horrendous.

I'm a bit confused about how often this is happening - is it every night since end August, or occasional nights?

Tell us a bit more and about what you've tried already and we'll try to suggest some things to try.

in a cot and sleeping bag. Routine the same every night: tea, bath, milk, story, bed by 7pm. Not so much exhausted as totally stressed out!

it's not every night - about twice a week. We've tried leaving her, but she just escalates to the point where she just can't settle herself. Have tried going in periodically to calm and reassure, but she just sits up and wants to chat and cries and cries again when you leave. I'd have to say that we haven't really tried anything systematic in the way of sleep training. She was tricky as a small baby, and then we've had a good 9 months or so of fairly decent sleeping.

This has been happening with reasonable regularity since she started at nursery at end of Aug, with attendant colds and bugs. She might be producing molars? I think she is possibly anxious about being separated from us.

OTOH she rarely wakes at night, so we are very grateful for that. But this settling nightmare means that even though we have good babysitters, you can't rely on being able to go.

So it's settling her off to sleep in the first place that is the issue?

It does sound as if it might be a problem with molars or bugs, doesn't it? It's so tricky to rule that out, though, isn't it? [wry-we-have-a-19-mo-emoticon]

Have you tried the gradual retreat approach? That's where you gradually distance yourselves from DD little by little until she no longer requires your presence to fall asleep.

The thing I would say is that you need not to worry if she's chatting to herself, and to just ignore it. You can say basic things like "DD, lie down and go to sleep". But don't interact with her.

yes, getting her to sleep is the issue. She does sometimes chat to herself, or even cry a little bit, in which case we leave her to it. It's the hysterical all-out, 'I'm either going to explode or throw up' crying that is hard to ignore and causes her to ramp up so much that she can't go to sleep. It's hard to call sometimes and she is quite hard to read - she doesn't always give you an obvious reaction to things.

I think it's something because she was largely fine before (we had a bit of roadbump around 18months, but I think that was developmental).

Thanks for replying - I think gradual retreat might work best on nights like this (that's what we ended up with tonight)