Please help with 23 Month olds sleep, tried everything!

[DialsMavis]

Hi, please excuse my epic post but I am desperately in need of advice, sat here crying with tiredness. My DD has always slept well, and apart from teething slept 6.30pm to around 8am for a year (with long naps too). However for the last 3 months she has woken almost every night. I have tried everything (I think), firstly I assumed it was teething so used teething gel/nurofen. Then we assumed it was just a phase and ran with it, but phases don't last 3 months!

We have also tried:
cosleeping- she doesn't go to sleep in our bed at all
sleeping on her floor/sitting with her- she often doesn't sleep and just wants to play
controlled crying: going in and out seems to upset her more.
CIO: managed 6 nights with varying success, but had friends staying this weekend with their own baby so ended up sleeping on her floor again. Do I need to do it for longer? we go in check she is OK and tell her to go back to sleep, then leave her (she doesn't get out of bed and is less upset then with CC)

She screams like someone is hurting her, but as soon as we go in she stops and smiles, so I am sure she isn't terrified or in pain or she wouldn't stop straight away. She doesn't cry when we leave the room, but screams again 10/20 mins later, so I think it's just as she is trying to drop off again.

Naps: really erratic, some days for 2 hours, some days not at all... with no real pattern on whether that improves the nights or not. I can't work out if she is too overtired to get back to sleep properly or needs to drop her nap.

For example: We started CIO last Sun it was up and down all week. Thurs she napped and thurs night she just cried out a couple of times (when I went in she fast fast asleep but crying out). Fri she napped and then screamed all night, so i had to sleep on her floor, Sat she refused to nap but was really tired after fri night, she went to bed at 6pm and slept until 5.45 am, Yesterday she refused to nap and last night was awful, I ended up on her floor again so DS and DP could get some sleep.

To complicate things further she learnt to jump out of her cot last week, so have had to make it into a bed. She does stay in it though. I tend to just have to pop in once at nap time and remove toys from her bed then she drops off, or plays quietly for 30 mins and then gets up and knocks at her door.

Please help me, we are all at our wits end here. My other DC are exhausted as are DP and I.

The DC were meant to be going to my Mums this weekend so that we could attend a really important event that we have been looking forward to for months, but will now have to cancel .

[DialsMavis]

Pathetically and exhaustedly bumping in case anyone can help

[MikeLitorisBites]

No advice sorry. We are going through the same with dd2 (22mo)

We have resorted to letting her fall asleep downstairs then carrying her to bed.

We are lucky that once she is down (about 9pm) she generally sleeps until 7am.

[DialsMavis]

Ahhh mine goes to bed like an angel most of the time. We kept telling ourselves it was wound up with her language development for the first month or so.... Now we are just jibbering wrecks! Hope you also get it sorted soon

[narmada]

Prob ridiculous suggestion but have you had her checked for illness e.g., chronic ear infection/ gastro upsets etc.?

Reason I ask is we have just been through similar with DS - 2 months of terrible sleep; Eldest DD caught threadworms so treated whole family and hey presto, DS back to sleeping well again. Could be coincidence but I suspect not.

[DialsMavis]

That's definitely worth considering Narmada, thank you. I knew MN would be able to think of possibilities that I have missed