Hi ladies. We have a 23 month old girl who has been a brilliant sleeper since 4 months old. Sleeping 12 hours a night and a nap each day of two hours. We always left her in bed awake and she fell asleep on her own. Suddenly, this changed literally over night, about two weeks ago. Nothing in our life has changed so we can't figure out what's happened. She will stand up in her cot as soon as we leave the room and scream blue murder, for hours on end. Absolutely nothing would calm her. We tried everything. We have sat with her until she is asleep and then snuck out but then she will wake a dozen times through the night, stand up and begin screaming again for us to come to her. Then the process starts again. Wait for her to fall asleep then sneak out. The same thing is happening for naps and most days it's so bad she doesn't even have a nap anymore and is getting only 4 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. We tried sleep training, cry it out etc. Nothing has worked. She's had a lot of tests at the hospital and they said there's nothing physically wrong with her just maybe extreme separation anxiety.
When we are so tired we can't take it anymore we bring her into bed with us and she will sleep. We don't want to keep doing this though because we know it'll become expected for her and it'll become another hurdle to overcome in future.
Someone suggested she may be ready for a toddler bed so we got her one and she likes it but going to sleep is still giving us the same problems! We have introduced her first night light but that doesn't seem to make any difference. She just wants us to stay with her and freaks out if we are not there when she wakes throughout the night. Blood curdling screams we just can't handle any more.
She has also started refusing her bedtime bottle (which she LOVED before all this started two weeks ago). She eats well and is healthy.
Please if anyone has been through this tell me what you did, what helped, how did you get them to fall asleep on their own again and continue taking naps, how long did the whole phase last?
Much appreciated!
2 Replies
I'm a tough nut when it comes to not having my kids in bed with me. I never enjoyed co-sleeping, but there are times when you just have to. It sounds like one of those times to me. She is two and plenty of time to get her back in her own bed. Otherwise have you tried sleeping on a mattress on the bedroom floor? I had to do that for awhile and then I could gradually move my mattress out of his room. I mean gradually, 30cms every week until I no longer was in the room.
My son will be 2 next week and his stopping his day naps aswell iam lucky if he sleeps for 45mins. If your daughter is sleeping through the night a solid 12hrs and 2 hrs during the day perhaps shes getting too much sleep. Also have her 2yr old molars come through they really played havoc with my eldest. Other than that your going to have to get tough to train her out of it. Try getting rid of the day naps so shes really tied at night. Stick to your night routine if she cries or screams go in settle her down and leave. Its going to be hell for a few days but you have to be more stubbon than she is and not let her win. Also read up about the camp out method ot really worked well for my boys better than the cry it out method.