At my wits end

[GotToBeInItToWinIt]

Posted about this before but didn't get a single reply!

DD is 16 months. She's never been a great sleeper but had started to improve. However over the past month or so she's started waking up at 10pm ish (she goes to bed at 7.30pm) and will not go back to sleep. She will literally be awake for 5-6 hours. She's awake now (hence posting!) and DH is in with her trying to settle her down. Nothing we do works. We've tried milk, water, white noise, rubbing her back, gradual retreat, ignoring her, etc etc. She does this about twice a week. I'm 24 weeks pregnant and it's absolutely killing me. She is wide awake. She will play for a couple of minutes in her cot then cry, and repeat. She's then obviously hideously grumpy the next day as she's exhausted but still won't nap any longer at lunchtime.
She has a good daytime routine. Up at 7, breakfast at 7.30, lunch at 12, nap at one for usually an hour and 20 mins ish, dinner at 5, bath at 6.45pm, bed at 7.30pm. We get out about a lot, in the fresh air, running around, toddler groups etc.

Any ideas? I seriously can't take any more and will be grateful for any experience or suggestions!

That sounds awful. I can only think teeth, or maybe something she has at dinner that's causing a reaction a few hours later?

Sorry, not too helpful bit I sympathise.

I don't think it's her teeth as we've just had her premolars through and she isn't showing any signs of any others but obviously you never know. She doesn't seem massively distressed, more that she's crying because we're trying to get her to sleep if you know what I mean? Just tired putting her in bed with me but that was a massive adventure and she was jumping around/chatting/trying to climb down to explore.

From past experience she will drop off from exhaustion at around 3am then be up as normal at 7

". She doesn't seem massively distressed, more that she's crying because we're trying to get her to sleep if you know what I mean? "

Yes. Totally. Same thing happened here. We sorted it a month ago, after 8 exhausting months. What we realised is that she didn't know how to self settle, and we were making it worse with all our ministrations. We eventually left her to cry, which I thought would be awful but she only cried for about eight minutes and that sorted it.

Hope you find the answer, it's really frustrating and I really feel for you.

I feel for you only mine is 30 months old.and unlike you my partner doesnt get up so between both my boys iv had 4 and a half years of broken/non existant sleep. Hope you find an answer soon.

Have you tried making her bedtime a bit later on in the evening say an hour later and see if sleeps better then? Maybe cutting down the nap time as well to say 30-40 mins so that she'll hopefully be more tired when it's bedtime.
Otherwise maybe someone goes into her to make she's okay, give her a bottle of milk or water if that might help settle her, tuck blanket over her and quietly leave the room and she probably will cry but try to resist keep going in, let her cry for a bit if needs too but if knows your or her dad isn't going to keep going in every time she cries then hopefully eventually she'll learn to lie down and drink her bottle and go back to sleep by herself, because she must be tired. Might just be too much commotion going on in her room and it's making her more alert and waking her more

Thank you for the replies, sorry to hear you've experienced it too!

She fell asleep in the end with me lying on her bedroom floor on a duvet completely ignoring her. It's like she suddenly decides she's ready to go to sleep again. Wasn't great for my back sleeping on her floor at 24 weeks pregnant!

She usually self settles but I think sometimes she's so wide awake that she just can't. I think she's refreshed after a couple of hours sleep at the beginning of the evening and almost sees that as a nap, then she's awake until she needs another one! She's never slept as much as other babies do really, at 24 hours old she'd have 2 hours of happy awake time between every feed.

I'll try cutting her nap down and making bedtime a bit later. We've done the 'leaving her to self settle' thing and she cried on and off for 3 hours .

Thank you everyone.