16 month goes to bed fine but wakes at night-- help

[kbaby]

DD has always been a terrible sleeper. Weve tried CC but after 2 weeks she still woke and cried for 2 hrs at a time. We did a version of pu/pd which reduced the wakings to once a night. However, were back to square one now.
She goes to bed ok and will fall asleep on her own. She then wakes around 1am and we give her milk and then she wakes again each hour until 5am. When she wakes she plays in her cot and then cries. We go in and lay her back down and leave. We can then hear her playing/talking. Im assuming she then falls asleep for a bit(were asleep by now so cant hear her) shell then cry again 1hr later.
We dont know if we should try cc again.
Is it possible for them not to need 10hrs sleep at night.
During the day she sleeps for 1 hr only anywhere from 12pm-3pm

what time does she go to bed?

is she teething? or maybe a bit chilly at that time of the nite? what would she do if you only gave her water on her first wakening?

Is it the cot?
My ds is a very "active" sleeper and kept waking himself up by banging himself on the cot bars. We moved him into a bed and things imroved hugely.

Maybe you could try not giving her milk at 1.00 am. That could possibly be encouraging her to reach full wakefulness and cry out for you. It's as if you're 'rewarding' her for waking you up.

If possible, try to ignore her first cries, but if she gets very distressed and is obviously not going to settle on her own, then go in to her but don't switch on any lights, don't make any eye contact and don't speak to her other than a very simple 'goodnight.' I think this is what you call 'controlled crying' (CC) nowadays. It didn't have a name when mine were babies, but was a widely used and quite successful practice then. I would give it another go.

She goes to bed at 8pm.
Ive tried not giving her milk, but it seems to send her back off to sleep. If I dont give any milk she stays awake even longer!

Last night for example she woke at 1am and didnt cry or anything but sat in her cot talking and laughing to herself until 2.30am. I went in and laid her back down and left without saying anything and no lights but once I got back into bed she starts yapping again.

I know I shoudl be grateful that she isnt crying, but even knowing that shes awake plus the noise she makes keeps me awake.
Also I just dont understand why she wakes.

Agree with the others about the milk, anything like this is a comforter for them and they will ask for it every time. A 16mo shouldn't need any milk at night. A suggestion made regularly on here is to dilute the milk each night so eventually she's just getting water and will hopefully not wake for that. Also, my 16mo was still getting 1.5-2hrs in the day and 11hrs at night. They do say they sleep better at night if they have a good sleep in the day. Does she wake up after the hour or do you wake her? Maybe try leaving her for 1.5-2 hrs next time? If she's waking hourly after her 'night play time' she will be very tired in the day, but just appear normal, and possibly isn't making up the 'missing' sleep. Once in an overtired spiral it takes a few days for them to catch up on their sleep and start getting better in the night.

Unfortunately our ds changed to a 'bad' sleeper around 20months and still is at 2.3yrs, so I can't really give out any fool-proof advice. We've gotten it wrong loads of times. So all I can suggest is wean her off the milk and try and get her to sleep more in the day. oh, and we found CC didn't have any effect from this age onwards (got too hysterical) and pu/pdown or put-back was the only thing that worked from time to time. HTH

We had the same problem with dd (well we still have a problem) shes 20 months, we cant use cc as she makes herself sick, so no advice but i know what you are going through.