dd2 19m wont be comforted just cries

[duvet]

dd2 sleeps well overall but every 3 weeks she will wake like last night and cry, we wait 10 mins to see if she settles herself, after that i go in and pick her up, cuddle her in her room, walk around upstairs with her, bring her into our bed but all to no avail she just continues to cry and cry. The only thing that stops her crying is if we go downstairs and put the lights on. She doesnt speak yet and just points to go downstairs. We try and avoid that so I usually end up putting her back in her cot and she cries for another 10 mins and goes back to sleep, sometimes give her calpol. Ifeel so mean tho I wish she would be comforted back to sleep. Is she just protesting because she cant have her own way or am i missing something.
With dd1 we used to give her a reassuring cuddle for a few mins then she'd go back in her cot settled.

DD2 does this for 2 nights and then fine again for another 3-4 weeks. Bizarre

.

How vocal is she? Is it possible she has had a bad dream/seen soemthing in her room thsat has spooked her? My neice got really creeped out over a vtech alphabet caterpilar once, looked lovely in the day but even my sis admitted in the dark it looked a little strange!

As it's not every night I wouldn't worry from a medical pov, ie pain.
Not much help really I know but worth considering.

Yeah I have considered maybe the dark , i think she's too young to be spooked by some thing. Myabe I should try a nightlight.

anyone else had this problem?

we had this a while ago when DD2 was 16months approx (long thread on it if you do a search!)
we ended up leaving the light (we have dimmers, so dimmed right down) on and she was fine.
so def try a nightlight.
have you seen these? lumilove they are really nice and stay cool to touch so you can put them in their cots. my DD has one and loves it.
you charge it in the day and it stays charged for 8 hours so no batteries etc.

my ds goes through these phases. he will go back to sleep if i give him milk (discovered this after trying many other things). he does stop crying if we go downstairs but then ends up fully awake and wanting to play so the battle to get him to go back to sleep gets worse. These nights are usually happening a) if he has not eaten enough at night for whatever reason (fussy eater, overtired) or b) he has not done enough running around in the day. i have started taking him for a walk after his supper to tire him out before bed! c) has slept too long in the day

Thanks for that, dd2 wont take bottle (that used to work a treat for dd1 too) I bf til she was 16 months so she doesn't do bottles or a dummy. Tiring her out sounds good.