14 Month old wakes up every night

[CosplayMummy]

Where to start... Dd is 14 months and wakes up every night for the last 5 months, nearly 6. It can either be 10:30 till 2:30 or 2:30 until 5:30. I rule out pain, wet nappy, heat, etc. And I know I shouldn't have given in and gave her anything to drink but after 9oz of watered down juice and 9oz of milk, she will fall asleep eventually. Even if I put her in bed with me, she won't lay down. If she's goes to bed before 8, then I'm up and down the stairs for 2 to 4 hours laying her back down.
From 3 months until 9 months she would sleep 12-14 hours solid. She's always had night terrors from birth but a dummy calmed her down when she was younger.

She eats really well, I even give her toast or porridge before her bedtime milk (Bananas make her hyper). She has a nap either 12 till 2 or 3 til 5. She's active, happy and coming along nicely.

I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm exhausted, by the time I fall sleep, it's time to get up. Even when she is finally asleep, she will get night terrors often. I feel so guilty when I'm begging her to sleep and it makes her cry. Any suggestions please?

 

[luz]

With my first we gave into every cry and would rescue him, put him in bed with us, comfort him . . . now i have a 3 year old who can't sleep in his own bed longer than 3 or 4 hours. With my second, when she would wake up and i knew she was fed and dry, i'd turn off the monitor and roll over and go back to sleep. I now have a 14 month old who has been sttn from about 8 months. Occasionally she will have teething pain and not sleep so well, but honestly, letting her cry herself back to sleep and learn to self-soothe has been a life changer! i can even put her down in her bed awake and she'll go to sleep within 5 minutes.

I know it is hard to listen to your baby cry, but they do need to learn to soothe themselves. Generally i let my baby cry 20-25 minutes before i go in and pick her up to try to calm her down a bit. There are lots of different baby sleep methods, I don' know much about any of them, perhaps you could research those a bit and see if one of them fits your parenting style and try that?

 

[fxmummyduck]

I could have written your post except that he hasn't slept through consistently since 16 weeks. He turns 14 months in 2 days...we were up half the night with him last night...we have been tearing our hair out. Big hugs, I am right there with you and completely understand. We've been doing some controlled crying and actually come along way from him sleeping on my chest, in my bed, rocking him constantly not being able to put him down...to being able to put him down at bedtime and him sleeping until maybe 12ish...after this has improved but still having probs with waking. We're going to carry on as we can see he's making progress, we just need to be consistent, hubby finds it very hard listening to him cry...as do I but something has to change! Wishing you loads of luck and hugs.

 

[mrsc81]

Similar issue here, my DD was a dream, sttn from about 7/8 weeks. Then at 14 months she started waking up every night, this has been going on almost 8 months. We went through a stage where she would cry and scream in the night, even in our bed, then she wouldn't go to sleep at bedtime, we are at a stage where she goes to sleep no problem but wakes up around 1.30/2am and stays awake for 2-3hrs. I've also got a 5 month old who is on/off sttn so I'm lucky to get 4hrs broken sleep between the two of them. My DD recently sttn for 2 weeks but is now back to waking up again, I don't get it?!
So unfortunately no advice but I understand how you feel

 

[baileybubs]

Just wondering how you got on with this issue as im having the same problem with my 8 month old who is in turn disturbing my almost 2 year old meaning a cranky mummy, lg and lb!!

 

[Wugz22]

Same problem with my 15 month old. I think everything is a phase though so I try not to let it stress me out too much (hard when you're not sleeping, I know!). He was up twice last night at 2:30 and 3:30. He cries, but since he wakes up around the same time every night, I know it's more of a habit then something being wrong. I play it by ear every night, but I leave him to himself and see if he can get back to sleep most of the time. At first it took him 15-20 minutes or so but last night it was just 5 minutes of crying and he was back asleep both times. Be consistent, but also rule out other things. When he has a cold or has been fussy during the day, I assume he's not feeling well and that's when I'll give him a little help getting back to sleep. But if he ate well all day, played well all day and was generally happy, I'll let him figure it out for himself.

 

[staralfur]

Oh, the middle of the night parties, such fun!

It is just a phase. My kiddo is still a crap sleeper at nearly 3 but it's more to do with fighting bedtime/multiple wakings/not staying in her room than it is being up for hours during the night. She stopped doing that a long time ago, thank goodness.

Sleep is not linear with babies/toddlers, most will go through phases where their sleep is very disrupted or changing even if they've previously STTN every night of their life.

My best advice is to keep reminding yourself that every bad night is one night closer to a good one. It won't last forever.

 

[mrsc81]

For my DD it was teething! Since her 2 year molars started coming through about 5 weeks ago she has sttn.

 

[susan_1981]

We went through a small phase of my 2 year old doing this a while back. He kept waking in the night and if he didn't wake at night, he'd be having full blown temper tantrums in his cot when we put him to bed. I was as certain as I could be that there was nothing wrong with him so we just left him to cry. I know that's not for everyone but I didn't want to be in a habit of this happening every night because he doesn't want to go to bed - we also can't have him in our bed because if I close my eyes, he hits me .

We tried to do the controlled crying/rapid return thing but his crying would just get so much worse by me going into this room. His crying would be at a medium level, I go in and it would go to full scale crying because he'd want me to get him out of his cot. He eventually stopped (it didn't take long) and now we rarely have him wake in the night. We do have the odd night where he doesn't want to go to bed - I have no idea why, he doesn't stop from the moment he gets up until he goes to bed and he doesn't nap anymore! - and all I'll hear is "mummy, want to get out", "mummy, want to go downstairs", "mummy, mummy, mummy" but again, if I respond to him in any way at all, it develops into a tantrum. Whereas if I leave him to it, then he generally gets bored after a few minutes and goes to sleep.

With my youngest, he was much younger than yours though, I think when he was 6 months, he kept waking up every half hour. It was so exhausting. We did controlled crying. Day 3, we hit breakthrough and he's been great (most nights) ever since, apart from waking too early that is but I can just about deal with that. I know these methods aren't for everyone but a little bit of tough love hasn't done my little guys any harm.