DD, 15 months, regularly cries for hours at a time at night and is inconsolable

[Sachertorte]

Is this normal or something I should get investigated further? She screams and screams, does not want to be picked up, co-sleeping doesn´t help or bring her any comfort. She falls asleep no problem at bedtime, generally completely exhausted. She has one 2 hour nap a day, startly shortly after breakfast time (again falls asleep immediately), but refuses to nap after this though it is clear she needs to.

So, is this normal? Most people seem to say their dc want company or confort in the night, mine doesn´t want this. Sometimes we just leave her to cry, going to her doesn´t make any difference at all. She´s not even awake as far as I can see when she´s crying. Going in her room may be waking her up..

Sorry this is long, please, and advice or thoughts welcome!!

You could try two things.

If she won't sleep again in the afternoon but needs to, take her out in the car to get her off for an hour. At 15 months lots of babies still need two naps. Once she has got used to this, she will probably start sleeping again in her cot as she'll get sleepy at thsi time.

Or, push the morning nap on by 15 mins a day until it is around 11:00ish/11:30.

The huge gap between her nap and bedtime is probably leaving her overtired - so she's waking up and screaming.

Thanks Milsy.. the problem is our routine has to revolve around other DD so impossible to push the morning nap later.. or to get her asleep in the afternoon.. : ( She´s never even slept in the car (!) and has never slept more than 30 mins in her pushchair, on the rare occassions she dropped off there..

Do you think she´s simply overtired then? Nothing more sinister?

Is she only screaming at night?

What is your other daughter's routine?

Definitely sounds like overtiredness to me. I think you should work on helping her to nap more during the day, or bring her bedtime forward.

Personally I wouldn't leave her at night time either. If going in doesn't seem to help you should try and find something that does help, not give up and leave a 15 month old to cry alone for hours at night.

About half of the time I have to collect DD at lunchtime, the other half early tea time. Pick up takes about an hour and baby never sleeps in the car. With her meal times there is never really a good window for her to nap if she won´t nap in the car. Of course I realise she needs to sleep more, but if she doesn´t sleep in the car there is no opportunity for this!

Screaming is ONLY at night, she doesn´t cry in the daytime.

I realise it´s not ideal to let her scream for hours at a time but what can I do? DH and I get up 2-3 times each but we can´t sit in her room the whole night! Co-sleeping doesn´t help at all. Would you like to sit in the nursery 5 out of 7 nights a week Alice? This is a long term problem now. HV recommended leaving her to cry btw..

Thanks for responses!

Could it be teething? Sometimes DS would do this - he'd be fine in the daytime but at night I think when there are no distractions everything seems much worse. I remember myself when I was little and ill I would dread nights because they seemed so long and everything seemed worse. We take him in with us and put some Bonjela on or give him Calpol if he's bad. He usually wants to breastfeed if he's very upset but I don't know if this is an option for you.

Sometimes we have just had to sit with him 5 nights out of 7 though - it's just the way they are, good spells and bad spells. Lots of support through the bad ones on MN though!

Hi, don´t think it is teething.. this has been going on since dd started to sleep through at 6 months. Till then she woke, fed and went back to sleep, it´s only since then that the screaming started. I can´t sit with her the whole night for such a long period. I did in the beginning but it´s not sustainable - I am then a nervous wreck in the daytime and have no patience with her. As it is we enjoy the daytime together.

I think your health visitor is wrong.

I truly have every sympathy. I have had dreadful times with my two and sleeping. I stand by my opinion that if she is screaming then you can't just leave her to it. Obviously you don't want to leave her to it either or you wouldn't be posting on here trying to solve the problem, so in that respect we're on the same page . Of course you don't want to sit up in the nursery 5 nights a week - who would? Ignorning her doesn't solve the problem though.

As others have said, first step would be helping her to sleep more as this screaming really might be overtiredness, but you say this would be very difficult to fit in with your routine. Could you move her mealtimes to give her a bigger nap window?

Is 15 months too young for night terrors? Does this screaming happen at roughly the same time every night? If so, they say for night terrors you can interrupt the sleep cycle by waking them up about 15 mins or so before you expect the screaming to start and then letting them go back to sleep and then the night terror won't occur. But I've never actually done this myself so no idea what it's like to do (friend's DS has them though)

If you think it's some kind of sleep disturbance (and IMO it sounds like something other than overtiredness and teething though they will obviously contribute to the problem) then you should ask your GP for help.

I think I´ll discuss it at the clinic again next week... I have the impression she´s having nightmares before and will read up on night terrors I think. This started when she was around 6 months though so seems unlikely..? The screaming used to start at around 3am but this has started to change over the last mont.. brief screaming from any time from 11pm then in for the long haul at any time from 1am.. I think I´ll start to keep a sleep diary and look for patterns... Certainly she has more opp for naps at the weekend and I think things are better then..

Thank you all of you!

Another daft question - does she have a nightlight or could you leave the door open? And is she falling asleep in the darkness or do you put the light out afterwards? DS wakes in a panic if it's dark in the room, especially if it was light and I was there with him when he fell asleep. You have probably investigated all these options long before now if this has been ongoing for 9 months, but you never know!

Well, she´s always had a nightlight, seems to be happy with that I think. The room is completely blacked out otherwise, she won´t sleep if there´s any light (other than nightlight)..

I think the most likely cause is overtiredness rather than anything more sinister. Perhaps see what happens over this weekend by doing anything you can to get her to sleep more. Push the morning nap on a bit, earlier bedtime - whatever you can do. It's amazing she won't sleep in the car - poor you! And if things are better after the weekend, you will at least know that more daytime napping helps.

Too little daytime sleep is nearly always the cause of night time screaming in babies.

I'm sorry for you - you must be exhausted.

Thank you Milsy, thank you all. I think you´re right, she definitely needs more daytime sleep, pleased you don´t think it´s more than this. It´s just getting her to agree to this. I´ve started a chart to see how things progress over the next month and am trying to get her to sleep more over the weekend. Maybe this will have have a knock on effect through the week..