My 2 1/2 year old has recently started waking up at night crying. It doesn't appear to be the "night terrors" that I have read about as it doesn't fit the profile. She will wake up and cry out but when I get to her room is not completely awake. I will ask her what is wrong or if something hurts and she will just repeat me or mumble things I don't understand. After a minute or so she is back to sleep. She has been waking up every 5 to 10 minutes and we go through the same process. This will go on for a couple hours. Is this something I need to be concerned about or is there something we can do to help alleviate this? We are very good about sticking to our routine before bed and she generally gets 11-12 hours of sleep at night.
Has she cut her 2yr molars??
My son is 2.5 and his 2yr molars have been bothering him off and on over the past year. I can finally feel the tops and bottoms (thankfully on each side) now pushing through.
If it is her molars, we use Oralgel nighttime and the Dr gave us the okay for childrens Motrin.
We just went through this with our 2-year-old. I don't know what it was, but I suspect that something related to her developmental stage was getting her attention at night (oh, and we had a new baby during this time). We just took turns going in and saying something or touching her and she went back to sleep. I found that singing to her was like magic. My room is close enough to hers that I could sometimes do it from my bed! We did deal with it for a few months, off and on, but she is an awesome sleeper now.
My son has been doing the same type of thing. He is 2 yrs 3 mo. One night he will sleep perfect as always and the next he will wake up 3 times a night and cry, not just cry, scream with no tears until I come in. Then if I leave he will wake up a few min later and it starts all over. He did it from 5-6am the other day when I finally had to wake up hubby cause I had to be to work by 7 and couldn't take it anymore. I thought he had gotten his teeth, but that could be it. Also I think they just realize they miss mommy and want someone now. He will also cry at bedtime now, which he rarely ever did before and he wants me to sit on his floor. Last night he screamed for quite a while when I left the room. Hopefully we will get some answers :)
went through the same thing with my son - I would say it could be molars or, as with my son, it was because he had to go to the bathroom! He was in the process of daytime potty training and knew to hold it but wasn't waking up enough to communicate it.
Just an idea of something to try.
if shes not completely awake, i dont think that there is anything else that it could be except just simple talking in her sleep or something. nightmares would wake her up, so its not that.
kids who have night terrors arent completely awake and usually dont wake up at all. they dont last long, anywhere from a minute to 10 minutes... and as long as you are there responding to her, she will be fine. for a while if you are comfortable with it, she can sleep on the floor in your room or something. this way she is right there and you might just be able to talk to her from bed and get her back to sleep.
it is usually temporary.
one thing you could do is to wake her sometime before this starts happening and give her a drink, or take her potty if she is doing that. then you can do your bedtime routine with prayer or singing or whatever and put her back to bed. ive heard that helps a bit.
anyway. good luck.
