My DD has never been a particularly great sleeper and we have only had a handful of nights where she has slept through. Over the last month or so she has been waking in the night and screaming. I mean really really screaming so that I thought something was really wrong and she was seriously ill. I have now ruled out serious illness but think she is or was teething again. I was so worried one night that I called my mum and she drove over just to give me her opinion. DD would not even let her grandma hold her (and she loves her grandma a lot) it had to be me or she would get hysterical again.
Literally every time I go to put her back in her cot or lay her down, she screams blue murder again. There is no way to stop it apart from letting her cry herself to sleep and it is beyond awful doing that. I am separated at the moment and so am dealing with this on my own which is hard.
Last night she was amazing. She went down just after 7pm and slept until 6am and then put herself back to sleep until 7am.
However, I put her down at 7.15pm tonight and then 10 mins later the screaming started. I went in to her and encouraged her to lie down by patting the mattress but did not pick her up and did not engage too much ( no talking just shushing). When I let the room the screaming started again. It has been going on since then. I can't bare the thought of another 3 hour stretch of screaming where she gets herself so hysterical her throat must be so sore and she makes herself sweat and get red in the face.
What can I do? I have read so many books on sleep. They all suggest different things. Do I just have to wait it out and if so - when will it get better? What is the magic age? Will she still be doing this when she is 4???? She is such a good girl in all other ways but she is so willfull and I sometimes feel as though she is testing me to see who will give in first. Both my husband and myself are very stubborn so she must have got that from us....
Advice ladies before I go crazy! Thanks.