18mo tantrum/distressed in middle of night

[andymcb]

Our little one (18mo) is getting so worked up through the night she's being sick.

We do bedtime every night around 7pm, she takes a bottle of milk, read a story and a quick song (both by our almost 6yo) and straight into bed. We leave the room and she'll settle fine. There will be a couple of cries to find her dummy between then and (roughly) 1am, but is generally fine.

When she wakes at 1am we change her nappy, given her some milk and back in bed. Again she settles fine, but 15-30mins later she's awake and screaming.

We have tried keeping her in bed and lying her down constantly or telling her to lie down, tried taking her out and cuddling up in a chair (still in her room) But the screaming goes on and on until she is sick, this then upsets her more. She'll someone settle for 10-15 mins, but will then start again.

It makes no difference if it's me or my partner, we normally try to take turn about each night, but it's getting to the point where we're swapping in the middle of the screaming because we, ourselves, are get frustrated and upset. We have no idea what's wrong, why she's this distressed.

Please help.

Does she really need her nappy changing in the night? Doing that could be making her more awake? If she is waking up around the same time regularly and taking milk, maybe you could try giving a dream feed when you're going to bed yourself and it might settle her to go through?

Could it be night terrors? Is she actually asleep (you say settled, so I'm not sure) when they start?

Is it possible to do a nappy change earlier, say around 10pm - one of the times she wakes up for the dummy?

And I'd think about changing (by slowly diluting) the milk for water at night. If it's 15 minutes after the bottle, then it could be related to the milk. My DS had problems sleeping (woke up 6-8 times a night until he was 3). It turned out he had a sore tummy from the milk..which we gave him every night. In the day because he was eating other things the milk seemed to have less obvious impact. It was only when we cut all dairy (after speaking to the GP) that he slept a whole night. Your situation is a bit different but I'm sharing because it wasn't at all obvious to us that his problems at night were caused by something he was fine with during the day (actually he wasn't, but it wasn't obvious to us or the nursery workers until two days after we stopped).

I think there is a 18m sleep regression. Definitely don't change the nappy. Are they getting plenty of solids before bed? 18m should be able to sleep through

I wouldn't change the nappy unless it was dirty, not just wet, i would stop the extra milk as that would make it wetter.

Have you tried taking her back to bed with you for a bit until she falls asleep and then taking her back to her room?

Thanks all for this,

Not sure if it makes a difference, but should also have said that despite being 18mo, she was actually 8wks prem, so developmentally maybe only 16mo?

This used to only happen once or twice a week at most... we're now in 3 in a row. 🙈

She is definitely asleep, rather than just settled, my wording could have been better.

We're not convinced it's night terrors as she is awake and it's more than just the screaming, crying. She's arching her back trying to get free from us, but when you put her down (bed or floor) she's wanting lifted.

Also not sure about the milk being the problem, if it were would this not then also happen after the milk going to bed a 7pm?

Will certainly try not changing her unless it's needed though and see if that changes things.