Help to stop 14 month year old screaming for prolonged periods at night?

[ManofWisdom]

Our 14 month year old boy is driving us to despair!!!

In the day he’s a happy contented boy. Generally he eats well and will go to sleep on his own no problem for one day time sleep a day, normally just after lunch.

At night we put him down about 6.30-7 and he’s fine and will go to sleep without any problems. He is ready to go to sleep at that time. However, he will wake generally sometime between 10pm and 1am and scream for about 1 to 2.5 hours. When I say scream, I mean scream. Not much seems to comfort him or calm him – even picking him up. Neither of my other two boys had dummies/pacifiers but my wife gave in for this one because this one was more problematic earlier on in settling him down. The dummy causes problems in that if it falls out, it makes him cry, which means someone has to go and give it to him and then he normally falls back to sleep.

However, this screaming period is terrible. It has got worst to the point that it now seems to be happening every night.

We thought it was colic and then teething. Previously we’ve seen various doctors and it has been suggested that it might be behavioural. We’ve tried controlled crying and even just leaving him to cry but nothing seems to work!!!!

Any suggestions what might be the cause or how to solve it?

[MsZelda]

I was thinking that maybe you could try changing his bed time to a later time say maybe 8:00 even though he is ready to sleep as you said. Keeping him up later may help him to sleep through the night and not wake up. Try this and see if it helps or not.

Another thing you might try is to get him a night light and see if that doesn't help him go back to sleep after he wakes up. Maybe once he wakes up during the night its hard for him to fall back to sleep again when its dark.

Good luck I hope someone comes up with a good suggestion for you and that something works.