My 16 month old DD has always been very relaxed and a great sleeper, but in the last 4 months it's all gone to pot and i'm shattered. From around 7 months to 12 months she'd usually sleep through the night (7-6.30ish) But now, roughly 5 nights out of 7 she wakes in the night crying and wont go back to sleep for up to 3.5 hours. If i try to leave the room she'll scream (often until she is sick!) I'm totally baffled as to what is causing this or how to deal with it & feel like i've tried everything. As soon as i go to her, she calms down very quickly, and after a quick cuddle (and sometimes a sip of water) she'll lie back down and is calm, but will just stare at the wall and occasionally fiddle with her hair or a teddy and fidget, but its not like she's wide awake and wanting to play or anything, but will sit up if she cant see or hear me and if she notices i've left the room, she screams blue murder.
We have a good, regular bedtime routine (bath, milk, book, cuddle, then down) and we usually leave her to fall asleep on her own (ie. we leave the room once she's settled and she falls asleep herself. She's in bed by 7 every night, and in theory sleeps till 7, although sometimes later if she's been awake at night an she has a solid and consistent 2 hour nap 11.30-1.30 during the day.
We used to give her milk when she woke up, but we wondered if it was causing "learned hunger" (ie waking up because she wanted milk) so have stopped that for several weeks, but it has made no difference.
She's had 4 of the smaller molers coming through over the past few months - and my husband is convinced it's this that is causing her to wake up, but we give her calpol, we rub on lots of teething gel and she'll still lie awake for ages...I'd love to hear if others have experienced this with teething and then got through it as right now this feels like its been going on forever.
... the weirdest thing about it is that almost no matter what time she wakes up, she almost always just falls asleep around 4am and its like nothing i'm doing is making any difference (fyi i've tried every approach i can think of, ie long cuddle sitting in chair, rocking her, singing, stroking her back or hair, not touching her at all, ignoring her and sitting in a chair nearby but not interacting etc etc.) I'm going loopy because its like she just wants me to stand there, leaning over her cot for hours and hours!
I'd love any advice or even just to hear people have had the same issue!