wide awake in the middle of the night

[dollyanna]

My 19 month old often wakes up in the middle of the night, wanting to play.

DD is not nursing, but still wakes 1-4 times a night for a bottle. We coslept until about 9 months, when she moved to a crib in our room. She was perfectly happy there (provided she got her nighttime feedings) until fairly recently. Now more often than not we are cosleeping for all or part of the night. We would be totally fine with that IF she was not waking up in the middle of the night demanding to play, crawling all over the bed, etc. Last night she woke us up by hitting me and socking my husband in the eye. The waking in the middle of the night wanting to play pre-dates the sudden wanting to cosleep, but it seems like it has gotten worse lately.

About half the time we end up giving her something to play with until she tires out again, half the time we manage to get her to fall asleep again.

We moved her bedtime back a half-hour, but I can't say it's made a difference.

Any ideas?

[rzberrymom]

Do you play dead when she does this? If DH and I stayed perfectly still and didn't move a muscle, DD usually got bored and resettled herself within 15 minutes--if we engaged her at all, tried to resettle her, even if I tried to nurse her, she was up for ages.

[dollyanna]

Hmmm. Yes, that is usually what I try to do at first, but she is really persistent. I have fallen asleep while she's awake and she has woken me up an hour later, still wide awake. She FINDS things to be entertained by in / near the bed.

[rzberrymom]

Originally Posted by dollyanna

Hmmm. Yes, that is usually what I try to do at first, but she is really persistent. I have fallen asleep while she's awake and she has woken me up an hour later, still wide awake. She FINDS things to be entertained by in / near the bed.

I know it would be a pain, but maybe move all the stuff that she could play with out of the room until she gets through this phase? Kind of an extension of babyproofing, I guess. For us, extreme boredom is the only thing that made my DD give up the middle of the night play (not that it really helps, but I think they all go through this phase).

[dollyanna]

Last night, DD would NOT sleep. Not in her crib, not in the bed. She finally fell asleep around 10pm. She woke to eat at 2am, then, starting around 3:30am, we got "mamimamimamimami" for HOURS We definitely tried ignoring her, but argghhhh! Plus, I don't want to ignore her when she actually NEEDS something, and it can be hard to tell. She still does eat a lot at night, and definitely did last night.

This morning, she woke up perfectly happy. DH and I definitely did not.

I had this thought a month or so ago when DH & I were both losing our minds over some horrible sleeping thing, but I do wonder if putting her in her own room would cut down on some of this. Like, if she couldn't see me, would she still wake up and keep up calling me for 2+ hours? I mean, I'm RIGHT THERE!

[JorgieGirl]

I'm dealing with this too. My 21m DD was up wanting to play from 11:30pm-1:30am. I always play dead and she manages to just sit up in bed for all that time talkng to herself. I did happen to fall asleep for about 45 min. in between (we cosleep) and woke to her chattering away.

I figure if I get upset and/or fully awake to handle her she'll just assume I'm awake enough to play too. I'm just hoping all my dead playing will eventually bore her and she'll learn to leave me alone. lol.

[Aries1985]

My 18 month old has been doing this once a week or so for a couple months. She's WIDE awake and thrilled for 1-4 hours. It is SO draining. She has to be next to me or she cries, but she can get off our bed and will run away and she get out of her bed (she has a twin) and run away. So I have to be up enough to keep her from doing that.