Sudden night wakings

Hey all,

DD is 15 months old and very luckily for me has been a pretty awesome sleeper for a while now. However in the past month or so we have had on occasion nights where she gets woken up by either someone around the house or something else and when she wakes up it is damn near impossible to resettle her. If you try to give her a cuddle she screams and arches her back as if to get away from you, if you leave her in bed she can start screaming bloody murder.

I have put a night light in her room because at first I thought maybe when she was getting woken up she was getting a fright because it was so dark but that hasn't seemed to have worked.

We have tried the following, getting her up for cuddles (in which case she is completely happy till you get her back to bed) trying to get her to sleep in our bed (she wont no matter what!) feeding her a bottle, works sometimes other times not, sitting next to her bed and shhing and patting (this has worked once but took a good 45 minutes and then again tonight I was in there for 45 minutes and she had calmed down and was nearly asleep twice but went nato again when I left the room) and finally we have also just left her to cry, she is not full blown crying the whole time and the gaps between her screams get bigger and the screams get shorter but its not nice to hear at all, It actually sounds like someone is torturing her even though I know she isn't in any pain. It probably took a good 20 minutes (maybe 5-10 of that was intermittent screams)for her to go to sleep again, and this is after 45 minutes at least of shhing and patting.

Okay so basically the moral of my giant novel is that I am wondering if anyone elses child has been through a phase like this if so what did you do to resolve, or if anyone has any ideas, 45 minutes plus of patting and shhing is not going to be ideal once I have a newborn to cope with at night also so yea what are your thoughts?

am still going through it Bex,and doing pretty much the same as you.
Hope you manage to get it sorted once baby is here

Sounds dumb but have you poked your head in the door & said it's ok Lexie go back to sleep.

Also do you have a night light on?

Kel, nah I haven't tried that will def try it first next time it happens, yep we have a nightlight in

Thanks Mummyofprinces, good to hear that you have been through it and found something that works! I think a combo of your and A&C's is what we will try next!

Lily's been doing it too recently, perhaps an age thing? It got worse round teething but seems to have continued.

Sometimes I think they just need to cry and get it out. I think if they aren't in pain etc then that's fine. I completely HATE CIO but there have been times when nothing has worked and she's just needed to get it out and then she's fine iygwim!

I have found that sometimes saying 'It's ok, mummies here, time for na-nais' (never had to spell it before lol!) works but sorta depends on when I go into her - straight away or after 5 mins etc.
Re the going in patting, shhhh-ing etc - have found it to take ages too but I generally wait a further 15 mins after she goes to sleep then exit.
I also sometimes just repeat the 'it's ok, mummies here, time for bed, lay down and go to sleep, shh it's ok, mummies here...' quite softly and she will lay down and eventually after some fluffing around, rolling around, moving around to get comfy sigh and close her eyes.

Hope she hasn't done it again for you! Chelsea has only just started sleeping thru consistantly since last Sunday when we bought a mink blanket and put it on her bed LOL (touch wood I haven't jinxed it)! Before that, she'd sleep thru maybe once a week if we were lucky. Other times she'd get up and come in our room. If she was in a good mood I could get her back to sleep in her bed, but if she was grumpy she would do the whole arching back and screaming thing and was real hard to calm her down. Nothing really worked, just had to wait for her to calm down herself. While holding her that is, can't leave her to cry as she's in a bed so just keeps getting out!

Fingers crossed it's just a phase for you guys

DD did this at the same age for while. Unless she was super worked up I just left her to it. Would just go in and tell her it was time of for sleep, every 10 mins and she'd calm down. She grew out of it.

If noise wakes her I'd get white noise CD - brilliant. After a while they sleep sounder anyway.

OMG we are having the same problem at the moment.
We tried letting him cry it out & he just screamed intermittently for hours.
The only way to calm him was to bring him to bed with us & stupidly we continued this for over a week.
In the end we decided enough was enough & now either DH or I go & sit in his room until he calms down which can take up to an hour.
In desperate need of a good nights sleep & am hoping this phase will end very soon.

Hey Bex, sorry I haven't been around here much!!

We are going through the same phase too - DS has woken any time between 2 & 5am for the last few weeks and won't go back to sleep unless it is in our bed (actually 2 or 3 nights, nothing has worked, wouldn't even settle in our bed!). We have tried CIO previously which worked on his settling at 7pm (it was taking him up to 2 hours to settle before that), but the cry during the night is different - it's not a yell/mad cry for us, it is an upset cry. He has been getting his next 4 teeth though, so we'll just keep bringing him into our bed for now! We are creating a huge habit but it's the only way that any of us get sleep. I am hoping he may just start sleeping through on his own but as previously CIO has worked for us (only took 1 night after months of headaches trying to get him to sleep at bed time), so we have that to fall back on that if absolutely necessary once the teething is over.

Good luck, hope it is just a phase for you too!

Nothing useful to add. My little guy keeps waking up too. Here's a book I can relate too!
Go the fxxx to sleep
No offense intended!