My 19 mo daughter has been a great sleeper since very early. For the past year and a half she has gone down at 9 and slept until 7:30 every night except for the occasional night when she was sick or stuffy. However, for the past three nights she has woken up sceaming every 2 hours. When we go in nothing is wrong and she will go back to sleep once she sees me or I talk to her I don't have to pick her up or rock her. She has also fought going to bed, before this she said night night to Daddy and we went up and she laid down not to be heard from until the next morning. Any suggestions on what may be going on or how to get a good nights sleep again?
B.,
Sounds like you have gotten some great advice! I just wanted to add that we went through this with my now 4yr old. We added a soft night light and then soothing music and she did much better. Good Luck! ~ M.
Sounds like bad dreams or night terrors to me. If she's waking up from sleeping and screaming, it's hard to believe she's trying to manipulate you--she's probably truly scared. My son started having bad dreams at about this age--or it may be that he was first able to express the dreams, because he was talking more. He told us a lot about a big bear.
She probably doesn't want to go to sleep because of whatever she may dream about.
As for advice, I would go with your gut. My son liked for us to "shoot" the monsters in his closet before he went to sleep. We didn't ever move him into our room to sleep, but sometimes I would lie down with him until he went to sleep (he was in a toddler bed by this point). I wouldn't throw out your whole bedtime routine, but you may need to get creative to calm her fears.
The good news is that nightmares come and go--with any luck, you won't be dealing with this forever.
--J.
Have you tried a sound machine. These are found @ wal mart. They produce what is called white noise. Just background noise. I have a few friends that use them with their children and when my husband was having trouble sleeping i bought him one, LOL Sounds funny i know, but it worked. It helped him sleep better.
A friend recommended the book "On Becoming BABY WISE Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep" by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam
After an all-nighter I went and bought the book. The logic is really simple, but putting it into practice made the biggest difference! My son was getting up 3 to 4 times a night and now sleeps well.
Also, is she cutting some teeth? My son just turned two and in the past six months when he's gotten up in the night it has usually been with his teeth.
I agree with the other 2 ladies! When my 5 year old was 2 or a little younger, he LOVED to watch Power Rangers, but all of sudden was terrified in his room at night because of the "red bird". Didn't know what the "red bird" was and for weeks, we only heard about the red bird at bedtime. Couldn't figure it out until my older daughter said that red bird was on Power Rangers. We cut out Power Rangers for a while and he went back to sleeping by himself. Also, if you have characters on their walls, like we have Winnie the Pooh scenes painted on each wall and one wall has a smiling Owl flying through the air towards a tree, my son all of a sudden after 4 years, decided that the smiling Owl was scary! So, now, Owl is covered with a poster that he choose!
my first thought was teething or maybe getting a cold (congestion?) - my next thought was remembering that my now 10 year old son started having something similar to the Night Terrors at that same age and it was almost always like clockwork 2 hours after he went to bed. Your daughter sounds like a MUCH MUCH better sleeper than any of mine have ever been - count your blessings that she is so easy to put down at night! :)
But true Night Terrors, if you read up on them, aren't supposed to happen to children younger than 4 years, and also last longer than a minute or so and just touching or talking to them does NOT help terrors. My son was very young also, but it wasn't long after he started sleeping in a toddler bed (he climbed out of the crib at a year old and by 18 months, we had our daughter anyway, and he wouldn't sleep in it, so we gave him his big brother's toddler bed - that is about when the Terrors started up!) - I agree with those that said any change in environment, positive or negative or seemingly inconsequential - also the brain chemistry thing - her body is undergoing SO many changes (they do most of their growing up until age 3) - the brain is a mystery even to scientists.
Best advice is what others have said - try the soothing sounds, even a humidifier running in or just outside her room to drown out other noises in the house or outside her window - lavender baths, anything else soothing - massage her little body after the bath with the lavender lotions, keep talking to her in the soothing voice and reassuring her. If she is responding to that, wonderful! My son would just keep screaming and push us away if we tried to touch him - it was SO distressing to stand there and do nothing! We just had to keep an eye on him so he wouldn't get hurt until he calmed back down - they would last several minutes, then like a switch was flipped, he would lie back down and be out again! Very strange! We had to move my oldest son out of the room and into ours for a few months b/c it would wake him up too! After several weeks or months, it will probably just stop, if that is what it is...
Best of luck to you - be glad it isn't happening at 3 or 4 in the morning - 11 pm is better than that, right? :D
Believe it or not, but what your daughter is going through is completely normal. She is at the age where her little brain does not "shut down" and I'm sure her imagination kicks in too. My daughter is 4 now and at least once a night she wakes up talking, crying, or just whatever but when she was younger it was much more frequent.
Also, your daughter is at an age of realizing that she has some control over an event in her life. SHE can control when she goes to sleep by putting it off through resistance. You may have to alter the bed time routine to include her opinion. We let our daughter pick 3 books, we (me & hubby) take turns every other night reading her books, then potty, brush teeth, hugs and kisses and off to bed. She very well may not go striaght to sleep, but as long as she is in bed, quiet enough and not calling us back every 10 minutes she can lay there and chit chat or whatever and within the hour, she is asleep on her own. Now yes, we HAVE had to put her in time out a few times when she has decided to be loud, yelling for us, etc..misbehaving basically, so a short 3 minutes of the time out chair and tears, she's straight back to bed and asleep. She realized she controlled whether or not she got put in T/O or not.
At some point you have to come to terms that jusmping up everytime you hear a peep is not necessarily the thing to do. I am a light sleeper, so it is of my own doing whether or not I hop up and run to her during the night...what I have forced myself to do is to lay there and she if she REQUESTS that I come into her room and soothe her..usually it is a dreaming outburst and she doesn't need me at all.
And Honey, you are NOT going to have the same sleep habits you had in your earlier life as long as you have a child in the house. There will be something or another through out your childs life that has you up at certain times during the night, nightmares to dating :)
Oh, B.. This probably won't be the first time it happens. :) I have a 3 year old, and he's started getting out of bed for the first time EVER in the middle of the night and coming in to wake me and Daddy up. Not fun.
Anyway, consider what is going on in her world during the day. How are things in her environment. Are the relationships surrounding her secure, peaceful, loving...or is she witnessing anything that might make her feel sad, scared, unsure... Could just be something as simple as hearing a noise or seeing something on tv...could be giving her anxiety and nightmares.
I hope this helps. Anytime my boys express this type of behavior it has always been linked to me and daddy not showing affection enough or going too easy on them and letting them get away with too much...they feel unsecure and need reassurance that we are here and still love them and each other (me & daddy). OR my 3 year old has an unhealthy fear of loud noises and if it's around one of those holidays with fireworks...it might wake him up and scare him.
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Well it could be nothing and pass soon by itself or it could be the start of nightmares or even night terrors. My oldest started nightmares around 2 yrs. But usually these were once or twice a night and not every night. Night terrors are different. The person having them wakes screaming and in a panic. They can happen with any frequency. My father-in-law suffers from them and it can be terrifying. My sister claims my nephew had them starting around 2 yrs, but she's never taken him to a sleep study for diagnosis and I've never seen him have one. He slept with her and her husband until he was 5 though and the night terrors were her reasoning.According to her he would wake screaming but as soon as her saw or felt them he would go back to sleep. He supposedly still has them but is old enough to deal with it on his own (12 yrs old).
It could just be a phase though for your daughter and hopefully will pass soon.
