Terrible turn for the worse! Help me!

[Ldavis24]

DD is almost 22 months. 

She is a total mama's girl, very clingy and snuggly with me. Very preferential whenever she is even slightly upset it is only mama who can make her happy unless I am not in the house at all.

So she is a tough kid to get to sleep. Takes about an hour on a good night and a lot longer on bad nights. She has never been a great sleeper and I think co-sleeping is one of the only things that have helped her sleep. We still co-sleep with a queen bed and side car crib.

So DH has been putting her to sleep for the past week and a half or so and at first it was going AWESOME...I would do bedtime nursing while we snuggle watching Nemo (one of the 3 movies she is allowed to watch) and then daddy would take her up and lay with her until she fell asleep. I'd listen to them on the monitor and they'd be laughing and giggling and eventually she would fall asleep on her own. 

I feel it is important to include that she has not been nursing to sleep for about a month now. When I was putting her to sleep she would nurse, pop off and roll over onto her belly then fall asleep eventually. Sometimes it would take a really long time for her to actually sleep, she'd try to play or talk or whatever.

So the past 3 nights DH has tried to put her to bed but she has begun screaming the minute she realizing what is going on. Usually before she is even in the bedroom. She screams "Mama" so loud and blood curdlingly that I can hear her quite well without the monitor and this is upstairs through a closed door. She screams in hysteria, like absolute PANIC. Frantic sobbing shrieking as loud as she can and it doesn't get better she just gets louder. DH is laying right next to her but it doesn't matter.

The past 3 nights I have run upstairs and kicked DH out and the minute I lay down with DD she literally COLLAPSES into my arms sobbing "mama" and doing that breathing thing you do when you cry really hard, where you can't catch your breath, it's almost like a hiccup. She did that breathing thing last night for nearly a half an hour before her breathing settled down. She was really really freaked out and scared I think..

DH thinks that I taught her now she just needs to scream hard enough and I will come to her...OF COURSE I WILL. She was screaming hysterically, not just crying and whining. I don't know where I am supposed to draw the line, when is a scream just a complaint and when is it true panic, I feel like she was absolutely panicked and freaking out and how she acted when I finally went up to her (after maybe 7 minutes of her screaming) she doesn't calm down for a long time and she clings to be so tightly it is so sad.

I don't know what to do, she was doing fine with daddy at first but now she knows the deal and she DOESN'T like it at all. I am back to putting her to bed but she still wants to play with me and it still takes an hour or more for her to fall asleep. The whole point was I was getting really stressed dealing with her for an hour or more each night. Now I am super stressed because I know if DH tries she will become hysterical to the point hyperventilating herself...

Is there a solution to this? I just can't let her scream the way she does with DH but we need to get bedtime under more control! I thought things were going so well and then she changed her mind apparently.

[mamazee]

It sounds like a bit of held-on separation anxiety.  Maybe she had a nightmare where she couldn't find out or something.  I'd just take over for a bit.  She'll get over it.

[kdescalzi]

I would just go back to how you were putting her to sleep before. I tried nw my 22 mo dd and at first it went great and then it went really really bad. I panicked at first but then I followed my heart and gave into her need for me. My dd is also super clingy to me....she is absolutely addicted to her mama. It almost seems abnormal!! For whatever reason she felt scared about not having mommy at bedtime. I know it is frustrating...I am right there with you. My advice, go back to how things were until you know she is back in her comfort zone and then see if you can make small changes. Maybe try putting her to sleep with daddy there? You snuggle her while daddy reads a book or tells a story so she begins to associate both of you at bedtime. Maybe it will be possible to phase yourself out. We do the whole, mommy needs to get a drink of water and i leave....I wait to see if she is ok once I am gone. Sometimes this works and I am happy, other times she realizes I am gone and gets upset and then I just go back in. Take what you can get and give in to the times when she most definately needs mama. HTH

[Ldavis24]

sigh, we are definitely back to mommy bedtimes. It's not that I hate doing them so much as she just wants to play with me...I find that incredibly frustrating. We tried getting rid of the nightlight but she really freaked out when she couldn't see at all. I thought that would help her realize it is sleep time...

The past couple nights I have let her nurse to her fill and then she would lay down on her tummy ready to sleep but 10 minutes later get back up and want to bounce around and nurse again. I didn't let her nurse again because it was more just a thing to keep her awake rather than food...Maybe comfort too but she is almost 2 and can handle not getting nursed ALL THE TIME...

She screamed about for maybe 5-10 minutes. Not cried but did her angry scream thing, you know when you can tell the difference. Crying sounds so different from when she is just strongly protesting...Well she actually stopped last night and just fell asleep, the whole process took about a half an hour so I am hoping we can make that a routine and then I can manage doing bedtimes still without going insane!