toddler tantrums & sleep issues......

[DebRiz]

for the last week my 18 month DD has screamed & yelled for nearly an hour as soon as its time for any form of sleep - daytime or nighttime. There are no tears just pure tantrums. We have only just dropped down to one daytime sleep and until this week she has been brilliant and going to sleep herself and sleeping all through the night.
This was until last night when she screamed at the top of her lungs for 1.5 hrs from 2am..... She is exhausted too, really pale and huge bags under her eyes from the reduced sleep.
We have tried everything we can think of, going in every 10 mins, lying her back down without much eye contact and no talking but as soon as either of us takes more than 1 step away from the cot she's up and screaming again.
Any suggestions..... my DH and I are exhausted and have no idea what to do with her!

give her the other nap back

tried that too but no chance of any sleeping until late morning and even that is with tantrums! i would love her to sleep twice but she is the one resisting it!
I don't want to make her 'scared' of the cot if we try to enforce the daytime naps if that makes sense.

ahh right,I'm with you now

Have you thought about putting her into a bed?
I know its wuite early and you would have to formulate a plan or returning her every time she gets out but it may do the trick

dd2 did the same as your little one at about 19 months and we put her into a bed because she seemed to hate her cot suddenly

It took 8 months to go from awful screaming nightmare every night to her just being told 'bedtime' and she would go up the stairs and climb into bed.
have a story and then go to sleep without getting out of bed

thats a thought...... we're planning on putting her into a bed in the next few months anyway as we have another one on the way and need to the cot but thats just going to be another whole stressful experience no doubt! She was really happy to go to bed until last week.
I'm not sure whether its a cot issue or a separation/being left alone issue. We made the no doubt bad mistake of bringing her into our room in the middle of the night last night as she's been up for ages and we just needed to sleep (let alone the poor neighbours next door) and she was asleep before her head even touched the pillow!
How did u cope with 8 months of it.....?

well it wasn't 8 months of hell
it was a gradual porcess
it started as her just getting out of bed every 6 secs and me putting her back
she thought it was great
but then she would stay in bed is I stayed near to herfor a few weekw
then I had gecko and I could stay next to her all the time whilst she fell asleep soi daddy did it sometimes when he was in or I took gecko in with me and sat with her but then I sensed that she would let me go away for a few mins and saty ion bed and then I would praise her and stay with her

then eventually I was able to say' good girl, sleepytime, mummy will be back in a mnute' and then go away for 5 or 8 mins and she would saty and then she started falling asleep whilst I wasn't there and then once she had done that for a few nights I told her she big and clever and that mummy would check on her in a while and I would just leave her until I knew she was asleep and then go and tuck her in

each phase took a different amount of time that I can't remember, I was just doing it

The first phase when she was just put into the bed was the longest
she used to jump around on the bed and I would be getting really pissed off but not show it and just lie her down without saying anyhting, it was very stressful but well worth getting thourgh it

stay in bed if I...

I had gecko and couldn't stay...

hmmmm cannot type

whats gecko?

lol gecko is dd3
she came along when dd2 was 21 months