Ugh! Night wakings at 4am!

Discussion in 'The Toddler Years(1-3)' started by irisflower, Mar 17, 2010.

  1. irisflower

    irisflower Well-Known Member

    Ugh! This has been going on WAY TOOOOO LONG! :headbang:

    My now 18 month old Matthew, who has all his 16 teeth, has been waking up around 4am
    every.night.since.I.can't.remember.when (well, the last 3 weeks)!!!!
    And he wants to be held to fall asleep!
    I'm gettting too tired for these shanaghans.

    And we are using extra pads in his overnight diapers, so it's not a pee situation.

    His brother wakes up screaming too if I don't "rescue" Matthew in enough time.
    Nothin' better than having 2 full-lungs sernading boys at the crack of dawn.

    Any ideas how to put this to rest? They aren't climbing out yet.
    Other than the good ol'CIO.
    Why why WHY is this dear, sweet "non-agressor" twin doing this??
     
  2. orangeyaglad

    orangeyaglad Well-Known Member

    I could have written this myself! Isabelle has been waking up at 4 a.m. lately. She screams her little head off. She doesn't have a dirty or wet diaper, she's not hungry, she's not thirsty...she just wants to be held. I'm starting to think she is having nightmares because she is really shaky and if we don't get her in time Aurielle will start screaming as well. Last night, we changed her, gave her some water, held her for only a few minutes and then put her back into bed. We had to let both CIO for a good bit, but they did finally go back to sleep and slept until 9 a.m.!
     
  3. kingeomer

    kingeomer Well-Known Member TS Moderator

    :hug: to both of you ladies!
    My first thought would be is Matthew working on a new milestone? Sometimes that can effect sleep. We went through a phase like this with my DD (but at 11pm and not 4 am) and could not figure out what the issue was. We normally use the Pedi Vapor Night Light in her room and switched that out for a while with a brighter night light and then would pat and sshh her back to sleep and if she still cried, we let her CIO. It took us about two weeks get to her back on track. I never figured out what it was that was waking her up at the time: it did not seem like she was working on something new, no new teeth, no night poo or pee :unsure:
     
  4. mummy2two

    mummy2two Well-Known Member

    Yes, my 18 month son has also been going through this for a very long time. He is finally at age when we tell him, no, I am sorry, but you have to sleep in your own crib (my dh has the very bad habit of picking him up and letting him sleep the rest of the night in our bed). Lately, when he wakes, we change his diaper, then explain to him that he has to sleep in his own crib, lay him down, cover him up and tell him good night. We then leave the room and shut the door. He cries for a little bit (no more than a minute) and falls back to sleep. I believe my son is a "light" sleeper and during the night, he wakes up a little bit during his sleep and starts crying (usually 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.). Good luck!
     
  5. sjohnson813

    sjohnson813 Well-Known Member

    Oh, yeah, I have definitely been there. And of course my two went through this at different ages so i had to deal with it twice. Cooper did the 2:00 waking around 18 months. Overly wet diapers started it, we fixed that with overnight diapers. Then it was just habit. We had to do CIO to break the habit. Clay then started 4:00 waking around 21 months, which by this point they were in toddler beds which made it soooooo much worse b/c he would stand at the baby gate at his door and cry. CIO is hard to do when they can get out of bed. We got the tot clock for him, and it is AWESOME!!!! www.mytotclock.com
     
  6. irisflower

    irisflower Well-Known Member

    Yup, the dr said at our visit that CIO is probably the way to go. Matthew has learned that Mommy or Daddy are avail at 3am4am to hold him instead of sleep in his crib.
    Some nights are easier than others.
    The dr said if it lasted only 1 week then it would be tolerable...that maybe he's getting sick, bad dreams, etc. but any longer than 1 week is a learned behavior. Given his age.
     
  7. jenniferkkelly

    jenniferkkelly Well-Known Member

    We went through the exact same thing a few months ago with my son. It was awful!! I read somewhere where separation anxiety is a huge thing from 18-22 months & I think that was definitely the case with my son. So what we did was give him some comfort items to sleep with (his stuffed Elmo, his favorite blankie, & I bought him a pillow with Thomas the Train on it). We made a big deal about giving him those items at night night time & even started to do it at naps. And almost immediately, the screaming stopped & he went right back to sleeping well.
     
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