Nearly 3 year old screaming for 2 hours a night.

[DialsMavis]

Please help, I've posted before but not for a while. My DD used to sleep brilliantly when she was a baby (apart from hellish episodes of teething). That all changed a year ago when she stopped

Sorry posted far too soon! She woke up every night for 6 months and we tried everything. Her sleep improved dramatically quite quickly and we put it all down to her molars coming through. Since then her sleep has gone through phases of a weeks wake ups here and there and bouts of early waking etc (mostly sorted by a gro clock). However, it all seems to be deteriorating again and we have no idea what to do. Does anyone have any advice? She is in a bed, but never gets out of it ( wouldn't really mind if she just snuck in with us). She wakes screaming for us, we go in and she instantly stops crying/screaming. We tell her it's night time and to go back to sleep , we leave the room and all is well . 10-20 mins later it all begins again. We have found leaving her after that is better but sometimes we have to go in as the screaming is do awful. The noise is so awful it wakes DS and it sounds like we are hurting her. I have tried sleeping on her floor, but its too uncomfortable to do all the time. She won't co sleep, she just wants to play when we have tried that. She goes to sleep quite happily, but will no longer nap at all, even if exhausted in the day time, sorry for essay !

What time does she get up in the morning & what time does she go to bed at night? Do you think she may be a little overtired? Just wondering if the screaming may be night terrors?

My ds (just 3) barely naps now & we are noticing an increase in night wakings/being unsettled & I think its down to tiredness. We had stuck with 7pm bedtime & he's been waking in the night & up at 5.50am so this wk we've tried 6.30pm bedtime & he's slept 12hrs with no wakings. So although counter-intuitive, the earlier bedtime seems to be helping.

Aside from that I think you just need to remain calm but firm at the night waking - & stick with a consistent approach - remind her its night-time & that you are going back to bed, & dont engage in other conversations with her. She will soon get the message.

Thanks for your reply. It's definitely related to over tiredness. When she naps (hasn't for weeks & it's been off and on for months) she sleeps for 12-13 hours at night and an hour or 2 in the day. But she just refuses to nap anymore. She goes to bed between 6.30 and 7ish and wakes between 7 & 8ish depending on how long she was awake in the night. Last night she didn't go to bed until 7.30 as we were held up and I had to go to work and she woke up at 6.20, but wasn't trying to get up like she usually does in the morning, it was the shouty, screamy night waking type. We went in a couple of times and she was quiet until the gro clock changed at 7 am. I'm wondering if me coming in from work at 2.30 am (yawn!) did a sort of wake to sleep thing and nudged her into a new sleep cycle (she usually wakes between 3 & 4 am). If we are home in time I am going to try and get her put to bed by 6ish tonight and hope that sleeping through (ish) last night has broken the cycle a bit.