I will probably sound neurotic as hell which I am, a bit but having had a very cold and un-demonstrative mum myself I am adamant DD will not have the same experience. I've found myself to be much more of an 'attachment' parent than I ever thought I was capable of and my approach in all things DD-related is very softly-softly, letting myself be guided by her needs. That's just what works for me.
She was a diabolical sleeper until 13m when I (very successfully) did a gradual retreat form of sleep training, never left her to cry (in fact it was so gradual she barely cried even once!) and she is now 20, sttn reliably every single night and able to self-settle at bedtime (I put her into her cot, leave the room and she happily and quietly goes to sleep about 15 min later).
BUT we have been having a terrible early waking problem for months (5am) and it is having a bad effect on me, on DH (I am exhausted and get grumpy with him) but most of all on DD who is painfully tired a lot of the time, she is one of those children who doesn't 'make up' her sleep, she just gets more and more tired and sleeps less and less well and deeply)
I have spent months getting her into bed with me at 5am but she doesn't go back to sleep, she is too excited by having the cuddle, she fights sleep (despite yawning and crying with tiredness) until we give up and get up at 6.30ish and then she is falling asleep in breakfast an hour later.
In desperation I am now refusing to get her into bed with me at 5am and have spent the last few nights instead going into her room at 5am when she wakes, lying down on the floor, telling her 'it's still night time, night night' and feigning sleep.
So far this has also not got her back to sleep and she has SCREAMED about it. Pointing at the door, saying (in her 20m way) 'out, out' as in she wants to get out of the cot, and 'bed bed' as in she wants to get into bed with me.
My tactic is just to keep repeating gently that it's still sleep time; if she gets VERY upset I go and give her a quick cuddle in the cot and tell her I'm here and that everything is OK. But she has still screamed (intermittently) and I am losing confidence. How do I know she doesn't feel horribly abandoned by me?? That is the last thing I would ever want her to feel, having had a very detached mother myself. Yes I am staying in the room and making sure she knows I will stay until she is asleep and that everything is ok, it is just not time to get up yet. But I am worrying and worrying that I should just give in and accept the hideous early mornings, despite her chronic tiredness, because I don't want to solve the problem (if indeed it even works, eventually) at the expense of her trust in me.
Sorry for the long and rambling post but if anyone could give any advice that would be so welcome! I read a thread on MN the other day about people remembering being left in their cots to cry as small children (admittedly CIO techniques and not what I've been doing) but it has triggered this worry in me that i am doing untold damage to DD.
The logical part of me thinks that she is screaming through annoyance and frustration at not getting what she wants (to come into bed with me) and that actually, as long as I am there with her telling her it's all OK, there's nothing so very terrible about letting a toddler experience frustration, we can't all have everything we want in life when it's not actually helping us.
But the less logical part of me thinks she is confused and thinks I've abandoned her.