2 year old waking up at night

ebalkits

In the past two weeks, my daughter has suddenly started to wake up in the middle of the night, crying hysterically. Sometimes it's once a night, sometimes it's several. Sometimes she'll go back on her own and other times I have to go in and calm her down. The first time it was definitely due to teething (I think she's getting her 2 year molars). I gave her medicine and she went back to bed. Last night I gave her ibuprofen which lasts 8 hours, but she woke up only 2 hours later. I waited to see if she would go back on her own and she continued to cry, so I went in. I asked if her mouth hurt, she said no. She didn't poop...I think she just wanted to see me, so I gave her a hug and luckily she went back to bed fairly quickly after that. We are moving in 2 weeks and I'm 32 weeks pregnant. We have been a stickler about keeping her routine as normal as possible. I would expect this behavior in a few weeks, but I'm surprised she is doing this now. Any suggestions on how I should handle this? I don't want her to get into the bad habit of me going into her room to comfort her in the middle of the night multiple times, especially since we'll be dealing with a newborn in a few weeks.

alrighthamilton

Does she seem fully awake? My two year old has been doing this lately too, usually only once or twice a week, and I think she's dreaming. She isn't fully awake, often her eyes are closed, and she'll say things like, "Want to stay downstairs and play" or "Want to stay at Grandma's." So I think she's dreaming about being upset and it's causing her to partially wake. I know it gets tiring, I'm sure more so when you're expecting, but I figure it's going to happen on an off for a long time, like years. I remember waking at night and going into my parent's room because I was scared, even into elementary school.

ashmarie22

My daughter did this several months back. Drove me crazy, but eventually she stopped.  Just a phase I think.  

ebalkits

Thanks for the advice. She's definitely awake when I go in there, so I don't think she's in the middle of a dream. I hope it is just a phase as others have suggested and that it passes before our second arrives! I thought I was long past this with my daughter and really can't imagine tending to her and the newborn every night if this continues...at least by then I can safely up my caffeine intake...lol!

HeavenBlessedMom

Yup..We've been doing this for a month. She'll b 2 on Oct 25. We took her out of crib now and have a queen mattress on the floor of her room. We lay with her til she's asleep (10 min) & mostly once a night she wanders into our room and one of us takes her back without saying much and lays down with her again till she's asleep. Just separation anxiety. She used to run to her pillow and sleep 10 hrs. What makes it more challenging is we have 6 mo old triplet boys. ...
Progress... she used to wander in 3 times/night. Hope phase is over soon!

ebalkits

Triplets! Oh my! My hat goes out to you...lol

ashiscute

Phases like this will always happen.  DD is 3.5 and she has woken up 3 of the last 4 nights crying wanting me.  If I ask what's wrong she doesn't really answer.  If I talk about it with her during the day she just says "I wanted to be with you".  It's kind of hard to be annoyed by that honestly.  

michelle615

I agree it could be a phase, or that she just may need you.  DS is two, and went through 3-4 nights of crying/screaming multiple times each night, but whenever we went in there it was almost like he wasn't fully awake.  I agree that kids can go through sleep changes, but multiple times each night had me wondering if something else was going on as well.  We tried a night light in his room - he said was scared at night - to see if that would help.  It's been a few weeks now and he hasn't woken up like that again. I'm not sure if you already have a nightlight, or would consider one, but DS seems to like his.

His pedi says that suddenly sleeping poorly can be indicative of illness.  I was considering taking him to the doctor if the nightlight didn't seem to help.  But we also have a long history of ear infections and I've gotten to the point where I don't like to wait and interrupted sleep was his biggest tell for having an ear infection.