17mo night waking inconsolable for tv

[mumofpoppet]

17mo has always woken sometime during night but often only needs dummy replacing or downstairs for short cuddle/sometimes 20 mins of soothing tv to settle him. Now seems to be developing habit of waking around 1ish and screaming the house down until taken downstairs for tv. Then calms immediately, gets sleepy but screams when we put him back in his cot. Have been up for 2hours until he'll settle. Tried to resist last night and sat by his cot for a whole hour while he was hysterical and cried until I thought he was going to be sick. Gave in and took him downstairs where he screamed until I put the tv on. Don't want to use tv, know it's bad to be watching it at 1am but in despair with non-stop crying :-(. Any advice? Anyone been there?

How about weaning him off TV onto some soothing CDs? I used something like this with DD1 to help her settle in the evening. So, CD player in his room, NO taking downstairs and NO tv.

Then maybe you can move onto weaning him off the CDs through the night as well.

Thanks Poledra, that's a good idea. I did try the lullaby on the baby monitor but it isn't very interesting so maybe the classical CD would engage him more.