Looooooong night time wakings/awake periods at 16 mo...what to do? Please help an exhausted pregnant lady!

[NinkyNonker]

Dd has never been the greatest sleeper, but the other week had about 10 days where she would sleep 11 hours solid, self-settling herself if she woke. It was amazing!

However she now seems to have gone back to long wakings, yesterday at 2 and today at 3. No amount of rocking etc will get her back to sleep so she comes in with us (am pregnant and tired so have limited will power, DH much better than me but working full time) and will still take an hour to get to sleep even in with us.

This morning when she came in she ended up screaming for nearly an hour, I think as she was so tired. Lots of firm cuddled eventually sent her off.

But, yawn!

What can we do?

Any ideas?!

We have similar problems with our 17 month old she can and does stay awake for 2 prof 3 hours! No miracle solutions for getting her back to sleep but she has a music box with lights which she will lie and watch quietly which allows us to snooZe until she is back asleep properly. Commiserations its awful we were all up from 3 until 5 last night... It must be doubly tough whilst pregnant!

How does she get to sleep initially? What is her bedtime routine? What do you do to aid her falling asleep?

At bedtime she has dinner, bath/teeth, upstairs for milk, book etc. She will then fall asleep on whoever is with her, and be put into her cot. If DH puts her to bed she will sometimes go down awake and put herself to sleep, but she won't for me! The whole sleep process for bedtime and nap takes about 10 mins, but if she wakes in the night it is a different story!

Ok, it sounds like she's never really learnt how to self settle. She is dependant on physical contact to go to sleep. I think the only way to maybe break the initial cycle is to re-train her to self soothe. Is it possible for your hubby to take control of bedtime for a few days initially? I'm just asking this first before I go any further....

Yes, he certainly would do whatever. Sometimes in the night she can self-settle, she always does if she wakes before midnight, but can't after! Very odd. And then she had this 10 days earlier this month where she settled herself the whole time...funny little creature!

When she wakes in the night, how long can you stand to leave her before you go and lift her out?

We leave her up to 10 mins at times, if it sounds like there may be a chance she'll drop off again. Only prob I have at the mo is the desire to go for a wee every time I wake up, which then alerts her to someone being up and about!