Screaming tantrums at 2 am...

[cristeen]

DS is 25 mos.  Beginning of Sept we night-weaned, and end of September, we moved him to his own bed.  At first he seemed to do fine with those changes, and was sleeping an 8 hour stretch before waking for a feeding (around 4/5 am).  And then suddenly it stopped and now he's waking between 12 and 2 am every night for the first time (waking at least twice/night).  Every night, this waking is turning into a full blown temper tantrum.  When he wakes up, I go into his room, lay down next to his floor mattress, and try to soothe him back to sleep, but he is having none of it.  These night wakings turn into screaming, kicking, thrashing tantrums (comparable to the tantrums he has during the day when I tell him "no" or I don't give him what he wants, not a legitimate pain cry).  I ask him to use his words, to tell mommy what's wrong, what's the matter, why is he screaming, what does he need, what does he want, etc... I've even resorted to pinning his legs to the bed so he can't kick and ordering him to stop screaming (which predictably had no positive effect).  But I'm not getting a response to my questions (even during the day he's mostly non-verbal during tantrums or episodes when he's upset).  If he wants milk, he usually has enough presence to spit out "milk", but he's not doing that at this waking.  I'm at my wits end.  This tantrum can last upwards of an hour (he'll scream for a few minutes, drift off for a few, start screaming again, drift, scream, etc.).  I am so beyond done with this behavior, but I have no idea how to stop it.  And at this point it's keeping DH awake (at the other end of the house), and he's pushing for CIO. 

After this first waking, he'll usually fall asleep for a few hours, then wake again around 4.  If I'm lucky, I've managed to sneak away, pee and move to the couch (sleeping on the hardwood is killing my hips).  When he wakes at 4, the whole thing may or may not start all over again (last night we had a total repeat).  This time he'll come out of his room to the couch where I am (screaming the whole time), snuggle up with me, take his bottle, eat what he wants, and then start the tantruming again. 

This is obviously not sustainable.  I'm not getting sleep, DH isn't getting sleep, even DS isn't getting a whole lot of sleep.  At 4 am, it's all I can do not to hurt him when he starts screaming in my ear once again when I thought he was finally asleep.  I don't like that feeling at all, but without sleep, I have little control over my emotional state.  This has been going on for over a week now (the tantrums - the early waking has been going on several weeks), and I'm just done. 

Anyone else BTDT?  Have some brilliant suggestions of things to try?  Please?

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

This sounds a lot like night terrors. My ds has gotten them since he was 18 months old. It scared the heck out of us the first time. He acted like he was concious, but he really wasn't. If you asked him questions, he would even sort of answer. This usually occured when there was any upheavle, illness, stress, change in diet, anything that was a stressor. There wasn't a whole lot we could do about it, besides try to keep the sleep low and we found that a bath with some epsom salts in it before bed seemed to lessen the chances of the terrors if he was stressed or overtired.

I hope you figure something out!

[IzzyTheTerrible]

Ooohh.  I second the night terror comment.  The first time my LO had one, I thought he was throwing a tantrum, it sounded very similar to his daytime tantrums.

When I went into his room, he didn't respond the way he normally does.  He thrashed, and screamed, and kicked and criiiieeeeeed.  There's nothing you can do when it happens, but I chose to hold my LO through it.  He eventually actually woke up after about 15-20 minutes and his cries changed, they sounded more like he was in panic mode and it took us about 15 minutes to calm him back to sleep.

There are lots of resources for night terrors on the internet.  Sadly, there's nothing that can be done other than waking them up, which isn't a very realistic thing.  Could also evaluate his day to see if there are any stressers.