Hi everyone, hoping to hear from anybody who's had any similar experiences. Our lovely 17-month-old DD has fairly recently (the last month or so) started waking at around 3am and really, really struggling to get back to sleep. She wakes crying so we take her out of her cot (still next to our bed) and she lies between us in our bed until she's back to sleep (then goes back into her cot). For the last 8 months or so (following an awful 4-month sleep regression where she woke hourly for a couple of months) this approach has worked perfectly and she's either slept through the night or woken just once and back to sleep within 15 minutes after a cuddle or a breastfeed; but in the last month things have changed dramatically and we now have crying, shouting, thrashing around, standing up/trying to walk around in the bed (tricky in a sleeping bag!), flailing her limbs around, crashing her head into our heads, sometimes for 1-2 hours before she finally falls back to sleep.
It's not so much the waking that bothers us - we still count ourselves lucky she generally only wakes once overnight - it's how wired and tense she seems to be (despite rubbing her eyes and clearly wanting to get back to sleep - she doesn't seem really awake, if that makes sense) and how powerless we feel in trying to soothe her back to sleep. Breastfeeding used to work instantly, but now even with that as an option often she'll latch on, latch off, wriggle around, cry, try to stand up, and now that I'm pregnant again (first trimester) I just don't have the same level of patience for the constant latching/unlatching/wriggling/kicking. When DH and I try to cuddle her back to sleep she often resists and pushes our hands away; or in contrast she'll be so keen for a cuddle she'll throw her head down on us quite violently and then start pulling our hair, poking her little fingers into our eyes, grabbing our necks, etc...which can go on for ages and gets very frustrating very quickly!
Sorry this is so long and waffly, I guess I just really don't understand why she's so tense and wired when she wakes up these days, and what we can do about it if she resists being soothed. Last night was so hard (awake doing all of this between 3am and 5am) and the first trimester exhaustion is really starting to get to me so I'm desperate for any advice on how to soothe such a wired toddler and help her get back to sleep more quickly if anyone has any thoughts!?
For context, she's a healthy and happy girl, very active and busy during the day, meeting all milestones, no medical issues as far as we're aware (though DH and I have been wondering whether this wired/tense behaviour in the middle of the might might potentially be early signs of ADHD, but probably too early to tell). She only naps for 1hr15 after lunch as she's always been a low sleep needs baby (we learned early on that if we tried putting her to bed at the times all the books said - 7 til 7 - she'd wake hourly all night long!) so pretty sure it's nothing to do with not being tired enough, and I keep reading about overtiredness being a myth (and doesn't fit her behaviour anyway in terms of when she gets tired in the evenings) so pretty sure it's not that either. Really have no idea what this could be or how to tackle it.
Any thoughts appreciated! Has anyone had any success with things like habit stacking? Audio books? Sleep meditations for toddlers?
Thanks so much x