Terrible night tantrums - HELP :-(

[Lochie]

Am hoping someone (anyone!) can advise how to deal with awful, ear drum busting night time tantrums which are currently leaving me like a zombie during the day.

In a nutshell:

- Daughter 18 months

- Regularly co-slept til a few months ago, we broke this habit by settling her in cot with bottle of milk and another in the night when she woke - the co-sleeping had to stop as she wouldn't stay in the bed and would want to go on a ramble in the night

- She now wakes in the night and INSISTS on getting up. Getting in my bed is not enough, neither is a bottle of milk - she wants to go downstairs to play. I have not yet given in and instead have put her back in cot, she responds by having an awful tantrum - I know the screaming is not for company it is because she wants to get out and play (she actually screams "GET OUT"). If I ask her if she wants a cuddle she says no and just points at the stairs.

- I can cope with screaming for up to an hour but after that I get her out and another hour of coaxing leads to her consenting to sleep on floor next to my bed

If anyone has experienced night time tantrums can you tell me how you have dealt with it? I wonder if going down to play at 2am is a good idea if this is just a phase, or would I be opening pandora's box?

[alieh]

Poor you! That sounds really difficult! I would think that allowing her to play at 2 am would not be a good plan as it would send the message that if she screams long enough she'll get what she wants, and it doesn't seem a reasonable request, really, as she (and you!) need your rest at night. It's hard at that age because while they understand a lot they are still very little. I would be inclined to just very clearly and calmly give her two choices - you can go back to sleep in your cot, or you can go back to sleep in our bed/on the mattress beside your bed (depending on what you want to encourage) but "It's sleepytime. Mummy is sleeping." or whatever phrase you want to use repeatedly. Or if you want to keep her in her cot all night for whatever reason then don't offer the choice of your bed....whatever you prefer. Just be as calm, repetitive, boring as possible.

I think offering milk, coaxing, negotiating, etc. all give the idea that nighttime is a time for interaction with mummy which may make her try to come up with new and involved ways to keep you awake!

My first was a bit like this at times. The choices we gave him were to go to sleep in his cot alone, or to have mummy/daddy sleep on the floor on a mattress beside him but if we did this he had to be quiet and go back to sleep. If he refused or kept screaming we would leave for a few minutes and then come back in and repeat choices. Usually he would quiet down and want us on the mattress. So then I would lie there with my back to him mostly ignoring him and just occasionally repeat "Shhhh...sleepytime". If he started up yelling I would say that I was going to have to leave as he was keeping me awake.

It really is hellish, so sympathy!

[Dodie]

Hi... aggghh, nothing worse than losing extreme amounts of sleep. You must be feeling exhausted. For me, I would say that you are absolutely right not to let her go downstairs and play and yes, if you give in to this I absolutely think you are opening up a pandora's box of her learning that if she screams and screams and screams she will eventually get anything she wants. It's so so hard in the night not to just do ANYTHING it takes to be able to get some sleep yourself! For me, I would say that even giving in after an hour and bringing her to your bedroom isn't a good idea. I would say that if you have set this new rule that she has to sleep in her own bed, than you should unrelentingly stick to that. I know that's easy to say when not faced in the wee small hours with a screaming toddler but I reckon that if you absolutely stick with it, within a few days, she will have got the message that it is night-time and not playtime. Not meaning to be prescriptive and I am sure you will find a way that works for you but this is what I would do:-

1. She wakes up screaming and wanting to go downstairs. You go in and comfort her with cuddles or soothing noises, stroking hair, tummy etc if doesn't want cuddle. You don't offer anything else to soothe her, other than saying "it's night time, darling, it's time to sleep". There should be no offering of other options, reasoning with her etc as this just re-inforces the behaviour. Try to settle her but she will doubtless continue to scream at top of voice. Leave the room after you have said this.

2. Repeat, re-entering the room every 5 minutes and if you are happy to start to leave longer and longer gaps as time goes on.

3. She WILL eventually go to sleep. This might take even 3 hours (or longer) the first time you do it and WILL feel hellish and you may have lots of moments where you doubt yourself but you have to trust that it will work and you are just teaching her how to get a good night's sleep. Which is a very important and valuable lesson for her and the whole family.

Then repeat the next night and the next. If you are ABSOLUTELY consistent, the screaming time will decrease each night and it will work. You need to be prepared however that for a few days, it will be much worse before it gets better. But it's way better to have a few hideous nights than this situation carries on indefinitely.

It's difficult. And it's basically a controlled crying technique which I understand and respect isn't the right approach for everyone. I've got two year old twins and just cannot afford to have them both kicking off through the night as I would lose my mind! Also have friends with triplets who absolutely cannot afford all that either. They shut the door at bedtime and never re-enter the room. All have slept well since birth using these kind of techniques. It's definitely not that this would happen naturally, I have had to teach them from early on and be unrelenting. They do go through little phases such as you are describing but I also use the above technique and the behaviour has always stopped within 3-4 days (getting less and less each day within that 3-4 days).

Good luck!

[Saffron]

My LO has been through a couple of very short-lived phases of this. As much as some people insist that 'giving in' sends the wrong message, other people will insist that leaving them to cry is an equally undesirable message. I think there's no black-or-white answer. What works for one parent-child dyad will not be suitable for another, and vice versa.

So just be cautious of anyone who tells you that you're doing it wrong, b/c their way is the right way.

I actually used to put a quiet cartoon on the television, and sleep on the sofa with my daughter sometimes when she was totally 'up' in the middle of the night. She never stayed awake for long, and these phases never lasted long, a couple of days here or there.

So, obviously in our case she did not wrongly get the message that night time is playtime, perhaps b/c that wasn't the message she was looking for. I truly don't think she wanted to be awake and playing, even though she seemed alert. She obviously just couldn't sleep, and all that she knew how to do when she was wide awake was to play. When I think about how difficult my own insomnia is as an adult, I can in some ways understand how extremely frustrating this must be for my daughter herself.

I don't think we've had a night time episode like this in over a year, and my daughter is now 3.5yrs+. She does still sometimes have trouble falling asleep. When all other sleep-inducing options have failed, I put her in bed with me or on a mat by my bed with Newsnight on the television, and she goes instantly to sleep.

For my daughter, anything that leads to escalation of night time crying has always made things worse, so I avoid it. I can't afford to do otherwise, sleepwise! But of course, what works for us might not work for others. I'm just sharing a different point of view. Hope you find something that works for you, and don't be afraid of non-conventional approaches if your intuition tells you it's right for you. xx

[SBot]

It seems that she needs to learn to get herself to sleep. Before when you co slept, she had you there so if she woke in the night she had you and would go back to sleep. Now she has the bottle that gets her to sleep. If she wakes you give her another. So she needs to learn to fall asleep by herself.....then if she wakes in the night ( as most babies/children do), she will be able to get herself back to sleep.

I can recommend Katie at Infant Sleep Consultants. She has years of experience as a nanny, maternity nanny, night nanny.

Best of luck

Sarah

[Lochie]

Thanks all for the really useful comments. I get so torn between 'training' her to sleep and letting her get what she needs in the night, regardless of detriment to us both in the day. So the worst thing is that I am inconsistent!

Your words are really encouraging as sometimes I forget I am the only one up at night with a young child screaming!

My only issue with sleep training is that (apart from finding it hard as she is so stubborn so I give in), we have just moved house to quite a small terrace house, and I know full well that my neighbours can hear her screaming in the middle of the night. Which is fine if its for short bursts, but they have 3 kids at school age and I hate to think of them losing sleep too for hours on end. Also she has molars coming through and though she doesn't seem to be crying out of pain (more sheer will to get out and play), it does make me feel bad about leaving her to cry. But maybe these are all excuses....if this continues I do think I will definitely sleep train as am starting to make mistakes at work due to sleeplessness :-(

[EmilyPie]

We did sleep training in the end after over a year of horrendous sleep. At his worst he was waking up every half an hour. I would go into work exhausted and really not capable of doing my job so I completely empathise. It worked for us and he now sleeps well. I'm not suggesting you should or shouldn't use that approach as different things work for different people. However I did learn a few things which might be helpful. The first was that although I too wanted to give my lo what he wanted during the night and felt that I would be being cruel sleep training him in fact what he really needed was sleep and once he started getting more sleep he was much happier and calmer during the day. He also benefitted from me getting sleep as I was able to be a more energised and engaged parent rather than a ranting zombie. I also found that he really liked knowing that there was a really predictable routine and structure. He knew what the rules were, he knew what was coming next and things didn't change unexpectedly. We developed a really strong bedtime routine, and some morning rituals like saying hello to the day eyc, which seem to really help anchor him. The experience has helped me realise that for small kids the world is quite unfathomable and unpredictable, so if I can put some rules and structures in place that is, I think, reassuring. It meant I realised how important being consistent was, which I hadn't always in the past, and also that I shifted my perspective from seeing sleep training as putting my needs over his and instead saw it as helping him too. Anyway, hope that is Helpful and not just annoying. I know the hell that is sleep deprivation so I really feel for you and hope it gets better soon!

[Dodie]

If you do decide you want to go ahead with the sleep training approach, then maybe you could go and see your neighbours and explain what you are going to do so that you aren't worrying about that in the night. Hopefully they will understand that it's for their good as well as yours (especially should be understanding if they have kids themselves).

[tomo]

Total sympathy! We've also got an 18 month old who historically has been an awful sleeper. We have been doing very gentle sleep training with him over the summer to help with early morning waking and bad nap habits. It has really helped although we have had a bit of a regression recently due to illness. But it has made a massive difference to our lives.

As others have said, it's not about doing it for you, your child needs sleep. There are many gentle methods to help your child learn that night time is for sleeping, not playing. It's not all controlled crying. Consistency is key though, if you wobble and give in then you end up sending mixed messages to your child. So I think you and your partner both have to be really committed to making it work. I did the bulk of the 'training' but having the support of someone there to say I was doing the right thing was invaluable. It's tough, but I was so hideously sleep deprived, something had to be done. It is amazing to see the difference in my son too, on the days when he's had a good full nights sleep. He's less clingy and whiney than when he was clearly knackered from not having enough sleep. We used Nicola Watson, child sleep solutions. She's wonderful and has been a great support through out it all.

Good luck!

[oimissus]

firstly, I would go and chat to your neighbours - if they have 3 children they will totally sympathise! And you never know, they could have some useful tips.

secondly, both you and your partner need to agree on a strategy - it's so much easier (not really the right word!) to get through phases like this if you support each other, and if one wobbles the other is there to help you stick to your guns.

I'm quite a meanie about strops, and I used to leave Miss Oi to it, but she didn't tend to do this in the middle of the night, more at bedtime. I would keep her in her cot (is she safe, can she climb out) and if she really is awake maybe have a dim light on and give her a book or some soft toys to play with/look at and leave her for a bit. She may doze off and, as Saffron says, the whole thing may only last a couple of days.

If it turns out to be more long term you may have to look at sleep training, but there are lots of different methods.

Oh, and if she's teething then dose her up, you can do a double whammy of Calpol and Calprofen if needed, plus powder and teething ring - it could simply be that the pain is making her wake right up and she feels more comfy not lying down.

[Belle]

Can also recommend Nicola watson, she offers a wide range of techniques, the one we went for involved no crying at all (though I would have been prepared to do a bit of th at if necessary, by that point) - and made a massive difference within just 2-3 nights.

[roic]

Thanks - have defo decided on Nicola. Found her website, looks good. Onwards and upwards!

[wellieboot]

Nicola helped us too! Can't praise her enough! I just couldn't have gone on as we were, best thing we ever did and I always felt comfortable with how we approached it. Good luck!