Waipuna has always been a great sleeper. She’s a light sleeper (which has it’s own problems) BUT she sleeps through the night and goes down very easily. She still takes amazing naps during the day – without incident. This August, at 19 months of age, she started to act like a LUNATIC. She was waking in the middle of the night screaming inconsolably and refusing to go down for nighttime sleep.

So, we were wondering WHAT GIVES?

There’s nothing worse than feeling completely helpless as your child screams in your arms inconsolably for hours. My husband and I were at our wits end. The lack of sleep and out of control feeling were contributing to arguments and making us very grumpy people.

We had to do something. So, we tried EVERYTHING.

Below you will find a list of the things we thought could be contributing to her sleeplessness, night terrors and refusal to go to sleep at night.

• Change of routine: a trip, sleeping in a different location, altered nap time routine
• Sick
• Teething
• Growing pains
• Dirty diaper
• Too cold or too hot
• Hungry
• No bedtime routine
• Going to sleep too late
• Too much stimulation, TV
• Time to move her to a big kid bed
• Separation Anxiety
• Scary book or TV show
• Too much noise
• Needs a night light
• Too much light
• Night terrors (Blog: Night Terrors)
• Nightmares

Here is also a list of things we tried that may or may not have worked. We aren’t too sure because by the time she started sleeping through the night we were giving her all of it! LOL I also listed some realizations we made along the way.

• Lavender, Vetiver, Serenity in the diffuser at night
• One of the oils or blends above with fractionated coconut oil and rubbed on the bottom of the feet, along the spine and/or behind the ears
• Homeopathic Hylands Calm n’ Restful < click HERE or on the icon below to find it on Amazon (cheaper than the health food store) – Wai is too small to put under her tongue so we would dissolve them in her milk or water and give to her about 30 minutes before bed.
• Putting her to bed 3o min to 1 hour earlier
• Previewing the bedtime routine: shower, bed, book, goodnight to her bunny, in crib with blanket and bunny
• Left the light on in her room / used a night light
• Rescue Remedy for Kids: Natural Stress Relief dropper < click HERE or on the icon below to find it on Amazon (cheaper than the health food store) –  to get baby to swallow you have to point it into the inside of the cheek sometimes. Most of it will go down. This formula is pretty sweet so my older one actually likes it and asks for more.
• We also changed her white noise machine to play soothing music instead… and I leave it on all night long in case she wakes up in the middle of the night. It drowns out other noise while also calming her.
• We realized that a trip we took to Oahu may have been the trigger for when it started. We broke her routine and this may have contributed to the initial night terrors.
• We ruled out sickness, teething and growing pains. The temperature in her room is fine. We feed her well before bed, fresh diaper and make sure to not have too much screen time.
• We did cut one nap time out of her routine to see if perhaps she just wasn’t tired. For us, it didn’t seem to make a difference.