16 month old waking after about 3 hours and not re-settling

[daisystone]

My DD has always been a bad sleeper and has rarely slept through. I know she can do it though as she has done it a few times.

I have put her bedtime back to between 7.30-7.45pm as 7.00pm-7.15pm was proving too early and she was not going down.
Generally she goes to sleep OK now but some nights she does cry or scream for a while.
However, she is now waking between 10.30-11.30pm and massively screaming. I go in and shush her and have tried laying her down myself or sitting by the cot and patting the mattress to try to get her to lie down.
She gets herself completely hysterical. Sometimes when I go in she is lying down and eyes are closed and her face is red and she is screaming although she is still asleep.

She makes herself hot and sweaty and it is such a massive change from her normal disposition as she is a very happy smiley child. Before bed time she will have been lovely and laughing and absolutely fine and then a few hours later it is as though she is being chased by and axe murderer or is in huge amounts of pain. What is it???? Could it be nightmares?
Why won't she resettle? Last night it went on from 10.45 until half midnight. She was screaming blue murder and her throat must have been raw. I offered her water a couple of times but otherwise lay her down again and said 'sssh sleepy time - go to sleep now' and then after rubbing her tummy I left her again. Cue hysterical screaming until I eventually went back in again. And on and on it went.

In every other way she is fabulous. Bright, funny, lovely, affectionate etc. But I dread nightimes and as I have been a single parent since she was 8 months old I have to deal with it all alone and it upsets me greatly.

Why is this happening? What is upsetting her so much? Neither of us is getting the sleep we need.

Teething, Bad dreams or Separation anxiety would be my guesses. So sorry you are dealing with it on your own. I was a single mother when DS was small, and it so draining to deal with in your own. My DD is a similar age to yours and her sleep has gone to pot lately too. I have put it down to teething, with a bit of separation anxiety and some bad habits forming! You could try co sleeping, even if just to recharge your batteries a bit. I tried it a few weeks ago and it was a complete fucking nightmare TBH! She spent the night alternating between screaming, crying, laughing and beating me round the head. I tried sleeping in her bedroom floor, which used to work when she was poorly, but it ended up similar to co sleeping but more uncomfortable.

We play it by ear really, if it's clearly teething (she just cut 4 at once), then I put Ambesol on her gums and if she is still clearly in pain. If she doesn't sound too distressed or is just awake, we just leave her. A little night light seems to work sometimes too.

What are her naps in the daytime like? I think making her bedtime later may be making her overtired as waking before midnight is a classic sign of this. It may be better to tweak her daytime naps so she is tired enough by 7pm to go to bed (a lot of sleep docs think this is the right time for the child's biological sleep rhythm).

My DD does the sobbing in her sleep thing too, half the time I think it makes her worse when we go in, but I can't just leave her when she sounds really distressed.

She always has a night light. She used to be fine without one but for the past 4 months she has really needed one. She has now gone from two naps to one and we are playing around with the time of this nap. It seems that she wants to go down at about 11.00am and sleeps until 12.30 ish. I have tried still doing two naps and putting her down at around 10.00am and she will go to sleep for an hour but then won't sleep in the afternoon so I try to wait to put her down for as long as possilbe so that she can make it through until bedtime. It is trial and error at the moment.

I was putting her down to bed at about 7pm two months ago and that was ok but now she just starts messing around or screaminig if i do that.

If we have a really really bad night I take her into my bed but she starts climbing all over me, smacking me in the face, rolling around so I think she is going to fall out of the bed and generally messing around. I can't just lie down with her and sleep.

I am so exhausted. Am actually going to go to bed now but know that i won't be able to sleep through until morning.

It does sound like she is overtired then, do you think if you gave her lunch really early (11 am) you could drag out her going down until 11.30 or even 12pm? Then she might wake up later in the afternoon and not be too strung out to go to sleep at 7pm?

Good luck, I know it's hard to deal with alone: but it does mean that all that delicious baby love of hers is just for you

Agree with Mavis - if she's awake from 12.30 to 7.30, I think she's v overtired. TBH, she's probably already too tired to settle at 7 which is why she's playing up. Have you tried putting her to bed extra early, say 6?

Agree with Mavis - if she's awake from 12.30 to 7.30, I think she's v overtired. TBH, she's probably already too tired to settle at 7 which is why she's playing up. Have you tried putting her to bed extra early, say 6?