2.4 years and up all night

[superchick]

So we are getting up anywhere between 5 and 10 times a night to settle DD atm. She was screaming her head off for an hour tonight as well. Most days she's up by 5 30am too. Still has a nap most days but when we've tried skipping it it makes no difference. Bedtime routine is fine and no major probs there except a degree of overtiredness (understandably). She eats well, gets lots of fresh air and exercise and nursery are happy with her progress. This type of behaviour in various forms has been going on since day one pretty much.

We tried various sleep training methods over the years but she doesn't respond. Currently trying to get her out of co-sleeping as she's very unsettled when she's in with me and wants to sleep on top of me. I'd put up with co-sleeping if it helped. Also been trying gradual retreat but consistency is very hard as she doesn't respond at all well.

She's not unwell. Been regularly checked by GP as I take her occasionally when at my wits end. I'm starting to loose my patience now both in the night and also in the day when she's whining and we're both exhausted. DP does his share but we are all seriously sleep deprived.

I'm seriously considering if she's wired wrong. There seems to be something in her brain that sparks her to wake up screaming over and over again.

I thought it might be night terrors for a while but it doesn't fit the classic pattern. Sometimes when I watch her sleep she seems to be in pain, writhing, grunting and screaming in her sleep but not at other times. We also spent a fortune in cranial Osteopathy to no effect.

Any ideas or advice would be welcome.

So sorry... :( no advice as my lo is much younger but bumping good luck!

Why don't you speak to a sleep specialist like millpond?

Oh you poor thing. I would agree that maybe it's time to get expert help.

Have you ever just tried to leave her screaming? With ds I often felt the screaming was massive over tiredness. The problem with him, and possibly with your dd, is that sometimes leaving him to cry would lead to him getting hysterical. It's. Very fine line. But the original time we trained him that set the tone and did require leaving him.

But mostly I would recommend getting a sleep trainer for advice and support.

Good luck. I do feel your pain. Dh and I were just talking the other day how it's only in the last few months that we aren't absolutely exhausted all the time.

One last thing, if bed time works well make it earlier. I know a lot of 2 year olds who are still in bed by 6:00 or 6:15. It might help with at least a little of the over tiredness.

Thanks everyone. After a lecture from nursery about how tired she is we had another bash at sleep training last night. I was up with her for 2.5 hours from about midnight. Lots of screaming and complaining but she spent the whole night in her own bed which was a bit of a victory. I still had to be in the room with her until she was sound asleep but I didn't give in and let her sleep on me and she actually slept from 2.30 til 7 pretty soundly.

It's all about consistency though isn't it. I now have to repeat that every. single. night. until she stops asking to come in with me and then spend another 2 weeks or so getting her to self settle. I wouldn't mind if we hadn't already done it a hundred times just for it to go back to square one straight away. The.neighbours must think we're torturing her with the level of noise she makes.

Well done. Yes, it's about consistency. Idid what you did at one point when ds was still in his crib and it was two nights of hell. If I remember right we then had a few more nights of middle of night crying while outside the room.

And yes, sometimes it feels pointless because then you get a bump in the road and you are back to square one. But, we found after the first worst sleep training weeks, every slip back had actually been less bad. It didn't always feel like it at the time, but looking back over it we can see that.

Good luck.