Help us please? 21 month old waking 6+ times per night

[JumpingJellyfish]

DD is nearly 21 months. She used to sleep well from 5 months through to 11 months, when she started to teeth (didn't cut her first tooth til 13 months). Since then she's woken a couple of times each night, but usually stttles back quite quickly...well it varied!

For the past month she has been waking every 1-2 hours, all through the night. She goes to sleep fine (7pm) but then wakes, wakes, wakes again.

We've tried just offering water in her room, shushing her back to sleep- and she often will go back to bed- only to wake within an hour again.

We have tried a bit of CC (probably not for long enough) but she wakes DS this way which was causing probs, so I'm a bit reluctant to keep going that way. She seems genuinely sore/upset when she wakes- think this is to do with cutting molars- but even when dosed with calpol/nurofen she still wakes A LOT.

Tbh I'm getting very worn down by it- DH too. Just don't know what's wrong. Have had GP check her out, can't find any probs with ears etc...So it's a mystery.

What more can we do?
Have to admit I have (naughtily) gone back to offering her a cup of milk once in the night in the hope it settles her for longer (which does't seem to work really)- she has been a bit unwell so wasn't eating as much and wondered if she was getting hungry some nights... (she also has CF so her calorie demand is high).

HELP Please!!

The normal sleep pattern is like a wave and we all (you included!) "wake" every 2(ish) hours but we have all learned to just rol over and go bakc to sleep so we don't remember it in the morning.

Does she need you or a bottle (or a dummy?) to fall asleep at bedtime? If so then when she comes to the first of her normal periods of lighter sleep she might startle awake because whatever she drifted off to sleep doing isn't there..like heairng your voice/sucking a bottle/dummy etc etc.

If you work on her settling herself on her own when she is put to bed the first time she should be able to self settle when she wakes in the night?

She doesn't have a bottle, my boobs (since 12.5 months) or a dummy. Bizarrely she settles fine to sleep all by herself at bedtime (we do the usual cup of milk, story, brush teeth, bed). I used some ideas from the NCSS when she was younger to help teach her to self-settle, but it seems when she wakes in the night-time now she just can't do it. She seems so upset.

Any more ideas (she asks desperately)?

Thanks!

bump! Anyone? Please?!

It's not a mystery, it's the molars. Calpol only does so much. I found it needed to be ibuprofen PLUS paracetamol in order to get 3 hours of sleep. Fortunately the molars only take about 3 months to come through; then 3 more for the canines and then another 3 or so months for the 2yr molars. (We're on those now, but his speech and comprehension have advanced so much it's not as bad. Just 3-4 wakings a night. )