My just turned 2 year old has suddenly been waking up screaming in the middle of the night. Nothing is wrong - she stops the minute you go in. However the past 2 nights she's been up for 2 hours in our bed. Lights off no talking but she will not sleep!! Should I just ignore her and leave her in crib? That's sort of what I want to do but i still won't get any sleep if she screams for 2 hours
-
I heard something happens to sleep around 2. Could it be bad dreams? What does she do for 2 hours in bed?
-
@Pumpkin Pie: I've brought her in to my bed twice because typically she go back to sleep immediately but the past 2 nights she rolled around, asked for milk, asked for a show, pulled my hair, stuck her hands in my mouth. Basically anything except sleep. For 2 hours
Eta I don't think it's bad dreams, although her imagination has been taking off lately, but she stops crying immediately when she sees you even though she's screaming so loud before that. She also has a little nightlight
-
Oh hey, I just went through this! B started doing this at about 22 months, and first it was just occasionally and then it was like every other day. He'd cry and cry and cry in the crib, stop as soon as one of us went in, but he was just...awake. For up to 4 hours. We went through the same thing - if we just let him cry then we're not sleeping either! Then we realized that having him awake in our bed also meant we weren't sleeping. It also became pretty clear to me that he wasn't scared or upset, he was just having a tantrum because he wanted us to come in and hang out with him. So we got the Gro Clock, and started telling him very clearly "Mommy and Daddy are going to put you into your bed and we're not coming back until the sunshine comes up. We'll still be here, so if you wake up you don't need to be scared, but we're not going to come in and get you." It seems to have worked pretty effectively, it hasn't happened in weeks.
-
@gotkimchi: if she just isn't sleepy, can you put some stuff in her crib to play with when she's awake?
I'm scared my 16 month old will grow through this so following for advice also.
-
@erinbaderin: I know I'm not sleeping either way
but the crying grates on my nerves and I'm not feeling particularly patient at 2am. We do have a toddler alarm clock which was working well before this. So you just had a few nights of crying? It does seem like a tantrum because one night of my bed she got pissed I wouldn't turn on the tv and threw a tantrum and then passed out
-
@gotkimchi: We had it happen once every few weeks for a few months, and I just put up with it - I kept telling my husband "It's rare, it's unusual, he's clearly going through something, he just needs us." But then it got more frequent, and then it happened 3 times in a week, and on one of the nights I lay on the floor of his room for 90 minutes holding his hand while he lay quietly (wide awake) and then I made my husband switch with me and he threw a huge tantrum (the 2 year old, not the husband) and then we brought him into our bed and he was awake for another two hours, and I was 30 weeks pregnant and had to get up at 5am to go to work, and I hit my limit and decided we were just going to have to let him cry it out. That's when we gave him the firm "We're going to put you in your crib and we're NOT COMING BACK UNTIL MORNING" and he seemed to get it. He still occasionally wakes up in the night - usually he just yells "My mommy!" a few times and goes back to sleep, occasionally it lasts for ten minutes or so - but we've held firm and it's always been fairly brief.
-
We had this right around 2. He would basically want us to lay with him or sleep with him. He couldn't communicate what was wrong. It was a phase and passed. I would try to calm him/ rub his back and leave, but eventually would just sleep with him.
Reply
Subscribe to our newsletter
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
7 comments