Night sleep and tanrum around midnight

Need your help with our sleeps! Our girls (2.9 yo) sleep in the same room. We are in bed at 9:00pm which we have been doing more than 1 year. It has been almost 3 weeks, S. has been waking up almost every night around 12-2 with crying, aching back wailing, thrashing , stomping feet , not saying what she wants, not wanting to have me touching her either - even everynight she just wants to hold my hand to fall asleep and wants a tight hug/kiss good night. She cried for a long time (more than 5-10min) and with her eyes wide open, look very awake, then eventually say one or two words "mamie " , "blanket " etc...

To help her sister sleeping, we have to carry her out of the room. She would not say anything and continue wailing until she is out of the room , which she didnot not and specifically tell me she didnot want to be carried out of. Then she would calm down after I hug her to bring her back to bed or sleep somewhere else with her. She then felt back to sleep after at least 30 min staying awake.

Her night behavior seems to be tanrums to me, even if it was a full physical activity day and good 2 hours of nap.

She seems to tanrum more during the day too this week.

When she was calm and in good mood during the day I asked her why she woke up crying, she just changed the subject every time. I asked her to talk to me as I donot understand her crying and worry/sad lots again today, but not sure if that would help her to talk instead of crying.

Our other girl sleeping pattern is changing too due to being woken up during midnights and sometimes twice a night. The nights she slept through the nights was when we gave her medicine she got warm and aches with bad cold (as the whole family got it).

Is this part of growing pain? allergy? How to calm her down faster/better?

Thanks much in advance for the feedbacks.

 

Sounded like she has nightmare or night terror. If so, she seems awake but she is not. 12-2 Sounds right for night terror. My son used to have night terror for a long time. But he outgrew it long time ago. My daughter some nights, wakes up screams and cries an says something like "blanket", "where is my monkey?",.. Then gets back to sleep. I asked and she told me once that she got nightmare. It's not that bad. And she doesn't do it every night.

I would recommend a stable daily schedule, less stress environment, less TV time, more rest in the day, lot of cuddling before bed, make sure she goes to bed happily. Also, if she is afraid of something like spooky man, monster,.. U should have a talk with her explain there is no such things...3 yr old kids have great imagination. We dont know what is going on in those little heads.

Also, if she doesn't have a good night sleep, she will wake up tired and not happy and will be cranky the next day. I also would cut down some physical activities in the day. More one on one time, make sure she feels happy and safe.

It requires a lot of patience when dealing with this problem. Gl!

 

It sounds like night terrors to me too. I have had a few of my kids have them. In my experience talking or touching my kids made it worse and last longer. I would just sit in their room until they quieted down. My kids never remembered having them the next day so that may be why your daughter changes the subject. For my kids it went in cycles, they'd have them every night for a while then go without and then start over again.

 

This. Jack had them at that age. We would go in and sit, but talking or trying to pick him up just made them worse. Eventually they grow out of them.

 

Sounds like night terrors to me as well. Not behavior. They have zero control over them and even look wide awake but they are not. You can google it. We haven't had any for a long time here. But when one of the boys have a night terror we just sit with them to make sure they were safe and wait it out. Touching, talking, moving them just makes it way worse and lasts much longer.

I think sometimes for my two it happened more often when they were overly tired.

 

Is she on any kind of medication? Anything at all - for allergies even? Just curious. My nephew was on meds for allergies, I forget which one. And his behavior changed - tantrums and such. When my sister-in-law finally thought it may be the meds, she took him off, and he went back to normal. Just a thought. Of course it could be night terrors - but the fact that you mentioned the daytime tantrums, it just got me thinking.

 

I am glad to read others have had this experience because one of my boys has been having these occasionally too; he'll get up very upset and appear to be out of it, awake, but not aware, shaking, inconsolable. It scared the bejeezus out of me the first few times but he goes right back to sleep without much hassle after he gets over it. He's also the boy who wants to come in for snuggles every night, so I think night terrors are the issue.

Can you try an earlier bedtime for them? Maybe a longer more restful sleep is needed? Just a thought.

 

One of mine also had this and as in your case, Jen, this is the child who is most likely to come to our bed almost every night. She grew into the habit of sleeping with close body contact or even holding onto me - if she slept like that the terrors did not happen. Now the phase seems to be over and we are working on getting her to sleep most of the night in her bed again.

A calm evening routine seemed to help a little and I agree with trying to move bedtime earlier to compensate for the restless periods of the night. For our little one, we needed to make sure that she awoke at the end of the night terror and that she was aware of our presence and comfort or it would often start all over again. I know you are not supposed to wake them in the middle of the terror but we always had to wake her briefly afterwards.