16mo waking for up to 1.5 hours in the night

[elportodelgato]

Just wondered if anyone had any advice really.

DD2 is 16mo and has been a fairly reasonable sleeper, she tends to go down about 7pm, wakes at 5am for some milk and a nappy change, back to bed and then up again for the day at 6.30am. This has not been ideal for us (would love her to sleep til 7am!) but obviously very very manageable and no cause for complaint.

We dropped the 11pm milk feed some months ago (she is on cows milk, I am not still bfing). Also we have done CC with her in the past and have found it has worked well with getting her into bed at night.

The last few nights she has woken up at somewhere between 1.30am and 3am absolutely screaming the place down and has kept it up for 1.5hrs, I mean really yelling. There is nothing wrong with her - she doesn't have a temperature or a dirty nappy, she's not too hot / cold, I don't think she's teething, I just can't think what sets her off. The DC share a room but we have a travel cot set up downstairs so the last 2 nights I have taken her downstairs and done CC in the travel cot but it is taking AGES for her to get the message and go to sleep. Last night was nearly 2 hours. When I go and settle her she immediately calms down, relaxes, starts to drop off then I put her back in the cot and she's off again like someone's trying to murder her. She finally went to sleep at 5am this morning, then woke up for the day at 6.45am absolutely happy and perky (unlike me)

What am I doing wrong? I am guessing we have to persevere with the CC and she will get the message, or am I missing something?

Thanks for any advice!

Are you sure she's not teething? Or perhaps coming down with something? The only time my LO has ever woken at night screaming like that is down to pain/discomfort. Generally, wakes between 2-4am have always been down to teeth. The best thing I found to do was medicate, offer a drink, cuddle him & he would usually drop off in my arms. I would always wait about 20mins before laying him down though, so he was in a deep sleep, b/c like your dd, if I tried too soon he'd wake back up. That said, if he did wake up I'd sit next to his cot & stroke his head/hold his hand but without any other interaction, just for reassurance. IMO it beats doing CC when there may be a genuine reason for their upset.

Can you also post your daytime routine just so we have the complete picture, just incase its routine causing the issue.

Are her molars through yet? It sounds exactly like molar teething to me .

oh thanks so much for responding!

Weirdly she does have her molars but not the ones between the molars and the front teeth IYSWIM. I can't feel anything there but perhaps they are coming through.

Good advice omama, calpol, drink, cuddle and hold her til she drops off might work better than CC and certainly 20 mins would be preferable to 1.5 hrs of awfulness.

She is at nursery in the week (I work FT) but her sleep routine in the day is just one nap of around an hour after lunch.

My 17mth old dd is doing this at the moment too. It's been going on for the last 3 weeks. She slept the last 3 nights right through from 7 till 7 though so I'm hoping we might be coming to the end of this new habit. She has had a horrible cough and has just cut 2 teeth so I'm putting it down to this. She also had some tests done at the hospital for her kidneys 3 weeks ago and I reckon they must've caused her some discomfort as they had to insert a catheter. The only things I've done differently the last few days was I gave her some toast before bed and woke her from her nap at 2pm. Usually I let her sleep till 230 when we have to go collect the older 2 from school. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that whatever was causing the 2am screaming has sorted itself out. Best of luck with your lo. It's a nightmare losing your sleep when you don't know what to do to help them :(

The teeth my dd just cut are her eyeteeth. She already bizarrely had molars too. So sounds like it could be that that's upsetting her. :(

thank you so much mum23girlys, how are you coping on 3 weeks of broken sleep? I had forgotten how hard it is, and DH and I are both working FT so we're really suffering even after just a few bad nights. Perhaps it is her eyeteeth poor thing. I do try and give her food in the evening before bed (older DD always has warm weetabix after nursery) but she's never hungry at that time, she just wants her milk.