continue or change the plan? 2 year old

[thegasmanswife]

this is a bit of long story so thank you for reading if you do!- we have moved house twice in 6 months, we're now in our 'forever' house and settling - all except my 2 year old's sleep. many would say we've made a lot of mistakes with his sleep but moving house and life in general has got in the way....

we started in a 2 bed flat where DS2(just turned 2; DS1 is 4 1/2 year old) shared a room with us from birth - was an ok sleeper at first but got worse over time - not sure why. Since he was born we've been stupidly busy - husband going for v big job so most childcare/housecare/DIY - basically everything else left to me. Then we move to another flat about 6 months ago (the move, including sale of flat 1 almost single-handedly done by me due to husbands busy job, I also work part-time) - this was also 2 bed flat so DS2 still in with us. This flat was in a block with no sound proofing - and we have 2 noisy boys who run a LOT during the day - at night we didn't want to keep the neighbours up with DS2 crying so ended up in the habit of letting him fall asleep on me then sleep next to me in our bed. He's a cuddly boy and we are quite close.

Cue - moving house again 4 months later. DS2 now has his own room and since he can climb out of the cot, we decided to make all the changes at once (perhaps a bad move) and put him in a toddler bed as well. So - new house (again), own room, big boy bed all in one go (you can tell he's the second child can't you?!!)

I slept on his floor for the first week but wasn't getting enough quality sleep - and we're desperate for him to be able to sleep alone.

In the last month we've tried a lot of approaches from settling him by being there/singing to full on leave him to cry until he goes to sleep. He is a very strong willed little boy and even when left to cry until sleep he would wake in the night several more times - it was hell. Also waking DS1 who is also strong willed and when tired can have challenging behaviour which is even harder to deal with when I'm exhausted too! argh!

The full on cry to sleep thing I found v hard - I hate hearing him scream and no going to him. We possibly didn't try it long enough for it to work but listening to him cry for an hour for the second or third time that night at 3am is pretty rubbish. So for the last 5 days or so we've gone back to leaving him for 5 min then going back and putting down - same phrase - and leaving so he learns to self settle - leaving it a bit longer, etc. He HAS gone to sleep by himself almost every time ( weekend trip to parents 10 days ago and didn't want to keep them up so went back to sleeping with me - yes- bad move no doubt) for a few weeks and yet he is STILL waking every hour or two and screaming. It seems to take me going in about 2-3 times for him to give up and go to sleep.

So - what now? Continue as we're doing (exhausted)?? - go back to full on cry to sleep and stick to it? Try gradual retreat?

or pay a sleep consultant big money to sort it with a tailor made sleep plan - prob can just about afford it but not exactly jumping at the chance at throwing a load of money at this!

I need more sleep!

Thanks in advance for any advice