Moms to toddlers-HELP!

[smilie]

My Dd is 16 months. She used to be an amazing sleeper. Went straight to bed with no whining or crying, slept straight through until morning. No problems. Within the past few weeks that is all changing. I can't even get out of her room without her standing in her crib and screaming. Even in the middle of the night she wakes up and cries. I can tell she's tired but I don't know what's wrong. This happens every night and before every nap. I thought maybe she was afraid of the dark, but her room isn't completely dark for naps.

Any ideas?

 

[clutter]

Molars or incisors? Try some motrin. I still bear the scars from every tooth my dd, now almost 13, cut. The molars were the worst!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Sounds like standard seperation anxiety.

Do things to reinforce that you are "coming back" and that you are not gone permanently. Sort of like "training".

To your child they think you are gone FOREVER when you leave. It is a stage of development to get thru.

I am sure you can find helpful hints if you google.

 

[ChickieToo]

My DD, now 11, had the same thing happen at about 18 months. We couldn't figure out what happened. We had taught her baby sign language and we would ask her if she needed a bottle, if she needed to be changed, if she needed medicine. In the past all we had to say to her was "What is wrong?" and she'd make the sign--even when her teeth hurt she would sign she wanted medicine.

After a couple of weeks of her waking and crying we were dead tired. I went out and bought Dr. Richard Ferber's book about children's sleeping problems. After reading the book one Sunday, we got her back sleeping in a couple of days. What I seem to remember was we had upset her schedule just enough to throw her off. This never occurred to us, because her schedule had always been a little erratic because of my husband's long hours, and she was always such an easy baby. I guess with eating, napping and so forth it didn't make a difference for her, but with nighttime sleeping the routine and schedule are king.

Buy the book. It will make your life so much easier.

 

[kpm76]

My DD is 2.5 and went through something similar about that age. She has always been an excellent sleeper so we were beside ourselves. Not everyone agrees with the cry it out method but it worked for us. We've always been struct with her routine (i.e. bath, PJ's, reading, lights out). We'd make sure she wasn't wet, in pain, needed a drink, room too hot or cold etc. When everything else was fine, we decided to let her cry and find her way to sleep. It was a week of you know what and I was a wreck because I hated her crying but it was enough to snap her back into her excellent sleep pattern and we have had no problems since, including when we moved her to a big girl bed last summer. Good luck

 

[puffkin]

Babies at this age can be very controlling. They start to realize that they have the power over you! Sounds to me like she may be starting to exhibit some of this "power" with sleeping and the seperation.

One question, does she do this when someone else puts her to sleep or is it just you? I had a similar issue when DS was about that age. We had different people come by the house to put him to sleep so I wouldn't have to do it (he did it to DH to a lesser extent). He didn't pull those "stunts" with them, just with me so we learned it was a control issue for him. After about a week of Grandmom, nana, friend etc then DH started putting him to bed. It was a no fuss night time routine and we were consistent with bedtime. After a few weeks of that I could then put him to bed and we had no more issues. He was in daycare during the day so no issues there with the provider, it was just at night.

The funny thing is that DS isn't overly attached to me. Of course he loves his Mommy, but he has always been more of a Daddy's baby. But for whatever reason, at night time he wanted me there. We are just thankful that solved the problem because DS has always been an excellent sleeper and has been since that little hiccup.

 

[Mrs. Charming]

This sounds crazy, but I think that was exactly the age where DD did NOT want to be in her crib anymore. She would scream and cry and scream and cry... and wake up and cry. We took the side off and turned it into a toddler bed. No more crying. Sure it took a little more effort on my part to get her to bed, but it was well worth having a quiet little girl.

HTH!!

 

[ChickieToo]

My DD is 2.5 and went through something similar about that age. She has always been an excellent sleeper so we were beside ourselves. Not everyone agrees with the cry it out method but it worked for us. We've always been struct with her routine (i.e. bath, PJ's, reading, lights out). We'd make sure she wasn't wet, in pain, needed a drink, room too hot or cold etc. When everything else was fine, we decided to let her cry and find her way to sleep. It was a week of you know what and I was a wreck because I hated her crying but it was enough to snap her back into her excellent sleep pattern and we have had no problems since, including when we moved her to a big girl bed last summer. Good luck

Using Ferber's book I believe we also had her cry it out.

 

[smilie]

So far we've been doing the cry it out. It works, but it takes awhile. This is what we did when we first had her sleeping in her crib. Not sure why she had this set back. It could be several things, seperation anxiety and testing her ability to make decisions are the 2 I'm thinking it could definitely be. She's very clingy to me lately but she also likes to make her own decisions. Especially at meal times: Do you want this?? Her: "no" and shakes her head. It's cute now but I know it's going to get worse.

 

[justhat]

My son did this right after he turned 1yo, so a bit younger, but what I did was gradually remove myself. In his case, his routine was disrupted when we were in Europe for 3 weeks and he was sleeping either in a playpen or my bed and just not on his regular schedule. Letting him cry during the night was simply not an option in our house then, so I would go to his crib and hug him (without removing him), then lay him down. I would stay there rubbing his back for a few minutes, then back away and sit in a chair. I would stay in the chair till he laid back down and went to sleep (he typically didn't cry as long as he could see me). He'd usually pop up and check to see if I was still there, but eventually he'd sleep. Took about a week total and he was back to normal, sleeping 6pm-6am without issue.

And at that age I have nothing against letting them cry a bit, but my daughter and son share a room, so she would have eventually woken up too, plus my husband *needs* sleep, like a child. So if he were up all night he'd be miserable, which I know from the overnights he has to do at work. So if the CIO isn't working, then I would try this method. Really didn't take long and was quite effective.

 

[bekkiz]

16-21 months is the peak time for seperation anxiety, I'm sure that's a big part of it. One of mine (just 16m) started being much more obnoxious about going to bed. I've been trying to have more cuddle time right before naps, because it seems to help, but he's so busy and wiggly, he won't sit still most of the time. It's very frustrating.