I am so frustrated with my daughter right now. She spoiled us rotten by being such a good sleeper since she was like 5 months old. Even when she got to be old enough to not want to go to bed she would always still go down fairly easily, after a book, song and prayer.

But this last week. Has. Been. Hell. It started out with her just waking up in the middle of the night from nightmares and crying hysterically so we rush to her room to comfort her. Then she went back to sleep. The next night it happened again. Twice this time. Then the next night she refused to be comforted and we let her sleep in our room. It continued to escalate each night. We thought we figured it out last night when we left the lamp on in her room and she was fine all night.

But tonight we left it on and less than 30 minutes later she was inconsolable. She wants us to sleep in her room with her or she wants to sleep in our room with us. We have tried keeping the door open, playing music, letting her drink warm milk before bed, going in to her countless times to comfort her, and nothing seems to work to keep her in bed. She now gets out of bed and runs out of her room when we start to leave.

Is this normal for this age? Is she genuinely upset or manipulating us? She is a very smart child and it's hard to tell. We generally are very loving and attentive to her during the day but we expect her to sleep on her own at night. We feel kinda heartless for that but it is the only way we will get things done and get some sleep.

We used to have a toddler door handle thing on her door knob but recently took it off because she had been doing so well with staying in her room. (We mainly put it on because she would wake up super early and sneak around the house in the morning.) We hesitate to put that back on for fear that she will truly be in distress and be traumatized from not being able to come to us for comfort if she really needs it.

She has had a nightlight for a long time now and that doesn't work anymore. She finally just fell asleep with her lamp on, music playing, and her door open.

Sorry this is so long but does anyone know what's going on here? Why she would suddenly change from sleeping so well in her own room with lights off (aside from a nightlight), and door closed, to needing us with her and refusing to go to bed?? I have no idea how to handle this. I have read 1-2-3 Magic and Love and Logic and I am trying to figure out what to do for this particular problem. So far I'm at a loss. I feel like I want to take her to a therapist or a child psychologist! We spend hours every night trying to comfort her and we are getting exhausted with it. Our sympathy has run out.

Here's a picture if my precious girly.