Communicating that 2am is NOT playtime

[Ruby2]

Dd (16 months) has never been a sound sleeper. She wakes up every 45 minutes - 1.5 hours all night to nurse. It's usually just a quick "turn over, lift shirt, go back to sleep" operation for both of us though. Once in a while, maybe once a month, she would completely wake up and fight going back to sleep. I usually tried for a while (30 minutes?), then gave up and dh took her for another 30 minutes, then we would both give up and just let her get up. One of us would just go downstairs with her for an hour or so and sleepily play. This nighttime playtime has been gradually increasing in frequency. It's now happening a couple of times a week. Dh and I both work and it's just not an option anymore for us to keep doing this. Dd doesn't sleep in any later (maybe an hour) if she's up for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night either, so the next day is always horrible for everyone.

I have to admit that I discovered the movie "Babies" a few months ago and was letting dd watch that with me when she woke up...mainly for my sanity, but also because she sits still for a LONG time while it's on and it's really easy to get her to sleep after about 30 minutes.

Friday night she went down like an angel at 7:30 (I usually nurse her to sleep and lay down next to her in our bed and sneak back out of the room) but woke up again at 8 asking to go downstairs. Dh and I decided that enough was enough and there's no better time than 8 on a Friday night to work harder than we usually do to get her to go back to sleep. Wow. It was a lot of work. She SCREAMED and couldn't catch her breath and screamed and couldn't catch her breath and refused to be consoled for probably an hour and a half. Toward the end of the horrible ordeal, dh and I were both sitting on the floor while she stood between us sobbing and looking at the floor. She finally sat on my lap out of exhaustion and after about 30 more minutes I was able to lay her down at 10:30. She woke back up around midnight and started sobbing again, which really made me question if we did the right thing. I just don't know. It was awful, but something had to change.

Did we do the right thing? Should I try something else? Help please. :-(

[D_McG]

Sounds like you guys got into some bad habits for sure. It happens! I never let my kids get up at night. I pretty much ignore them if they wake (beyond nursing them when they are that age). If they talk, try to get up etc they get a sleepy 'nighttime is for sleeping' and if necessary I held them in the bed until they stopped asking to get up. I just really never wanted to get into the habit of getting up with them. I personally never get out of bed except to pee at night. I know some adults even get up and have a snack or read etc but not me.
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That said neither of mine persisted with trying to get up longer than a few nights. Who knows what I'd have done if they persisted.

The tantrums are distressing but she's probably exhausted. That kind of waking (ever 45 minutes?) is a little excessive for her age, I'd say. I had to restrict nursing my son at night because he was like that. It really helped.