DD all of a sudden seems scared to go to sleep?!?

[Taler]

She's 23 months old and where she used to settle really well she now takes a lot longer to settle and will cry/scream if we leave the room.

And if she wakes during the night which she's been doing most nights for the past few weeks she generally doesn't take too long to resettle but wants me/DH to be holding he hand or (if she had her way) stay in the room with her all night!

As I write this in sat on the chair in her room waiting til she's in a deeper sleep before I 'risk' moving! She screamed when I left, did leave her a short while but if she works herself up too much she can throw up and it sounded like that was maybe gonna happen so went in, gave her a cuddle (while she was still in re cot) and then sat on the chair. She stood watching me for a few mins then laid down and soon after fell asleep.

Am hoping she will sleep thru but concerned that she needs a lot more settling at the moment. It's like she's scared to fall asleep?!?

Any advice?

[GeorgeTheGiraffe]

This sounds exactly like my 19 month old. Not sure how much your daughter is talking but mine isn't at all so really difficult to know what the problem is. But like yours, she will scream unless someone is sat in her room while she falls asleep (same for naps and night wakings). This has been going on 2 weeks. Prior to this she was self settling, not waking at night and when she woke in the morning would happily lie down or play with her soft toys for half hr! This came totally out of the blue.

I posted about it in the sleep forum and a couple of people said it's just a phase. So fingers crossed not a long one!

Our daughter has had many "blips" like this to her sleep throughout her life and the thing that has usually helped in the longrun is not to deviate from your normal routine too much. So, although us sitting in her room is different to usual, we still go through the routine at bedtime/naptime as usual and leave the room as usual but if we have to return we don't get her out the cot for more cuddles we just reassure her and then sit in the room until she's asleep. Same for nightwakings (we'd go in, give her a cuddle, pop her back to bed, leave and then if we had to return we'd just sit there until she went back to sleep).
Today at naptime was a huge moment -- she didn't make a fuss at all. So hopefully this means we're back on track. Goodluck! x