Sudden not sleeping through the night

My twins are exactly 2 1/2 years old. They share a room and have the whole time. They gave up naps about 2 months ago cold turkey. Nothing I tried fixed that so I just started to put them to bed earlier. They sleep 6:30 to about 7 am. Which was great and they were doing fine. Just last Sunday my daughter (the other one is a boy) woke up at 9:30 pm, in hysterics. I just thought she was sick. But then kept waking up and pretty much was wide awake until 1:30 am. Ever since then she is always getting up at 9:30 on the dot, distraught about something. I took her to the doctor and they said she is fine but might have a virus but nothing too bad. She seems fine during the day, nothing but a runny nose and just getting over a cold. I just don't know what to do. We tried crying it out (not easy with her brother in there, we even took him out and well then they just both don't get any sleep). During the week it started to get better but last night she woke up at 9:30 then every 2 hours from then on.

I think she is starting to dream and doesn't know how to handle it. I don't know how to handle it either.

Any advice would be great. I know this is a phase and she will get over it, I just wish it would be sooner than later (right, who doesn't like to sleep, lol).

Just want to know who has had similar experiences and what has happened?

THANKS!!

 

I don't have any advice but will be watching this thread closely. My son has started screaming in the middle of the night. I think it might be dreams, too, or molars, but it sounds like he is terrified.

 

My son occasionally does this and we picked one of his stuffed animals (gray dino) and told him that gray dino was special and would protect him. If we woke in the middle of the night, he should hold onto gray dino and he will be safe. He uses gray dino for bad dreams, storms and other things like that. I will say that he never woke up screaming out, so he might not have had really bad dreams, but this has worked for us.

 

Whenever we have sudden sleep disturbances, we of course look first to any issues that may be causing it. Once we rule out any fever, pain, discomfort, wetness, hunger, etc. then I usually move on to looking at how much they are getting overall. It may just be my kids (though I don't believe it is!) but I very quickly notice that less sleep leads to less sleep, and more sleep leads to more sleep for my kids! It seems like their night time routine is very good (minus the current wakings), but it seems like they are quite young to have given up the nap. Have you tried seeing if they would start it up again? They may just need more sleep than they're getting. Sleep needs are easy to underestimate, and what may have been a phase that they went through of refusing their nap could be over? My kids are younger than yours, just over two, but they take a two hour nap during the day and sleep 12-14 hours at night! When we dip below this line either by missing a nap or putting them to bed late we often end up with difficulty with naps and night waking over the next few days until we get firmly back on schedule.

Something to consider?

 

One of my LOs has had night-time terrors for a long time and in addition started to wake up screaming or crying some time during the evening a few times each week. We think she is dreaming although she does not say so (she is quite verbal in other regards). We do a mini-bedtime routine with her when this crying occurs, in the dark room to let her brother sleep: We take her out of bed and cuddle with her, pray again and then put her back to bed when she is ready. We tell her that she can call us and that God is protecting her and then we leave the light in the hall on for her and leave their door partly open.

It has rarely happened more than once a night. But I have noticed that it seems to happen more often when they refused to nap, were overtired or overstimulated or had an exciting day. Maybe a longer calming down phase in the evening, before you start the bedtime routine could help lessen these episodes?

 

Just to add to what the others have said... Do they sleep with a night light? My son started waking many times at night (not terrified, though) and a night light has cut down the number of times he wakes (he wakes once now between 1am-2am). Easy to try and could be an easy solution. We have also recently transitioned to toddler beds so I think that is affecting him. If she is going through a transition somewhere, maybe it is making her insecure and it is translating in her sleep. If that is the case, hopefully it is just a phase! Good luck!!