I have a 16 month old DS and bedtime has become a complete and utter nightmare!
We moved him into a cot sidecarred to the bed from our bed about 3 weeks ago. I subsequently night-weaned him because I'm pregnant and suffering extreme nursing aversion but did not (and still do not) want to wean him completely but I knew something needed to change and thought now was a good time to do it because I don't want to be up feeding 2 babies in the night if he continues after the new baby arrives.
So he's gone from nursing every couple of hours during the night to regularly going 7 or 8 hours asleep without a feed which obviously is great but getting him to sleep in the first place seems to be getting more and more difficult as time goes on. 40 mins on a good night, 2 hours plus on a bad one. I have fallen asleep on more than one occasion and been there for the night unintentionally waiting for him to wind down.
I'm not sure if he still needs 2 naps or is ready to cut down to one. He went for a few weeks napping at regular times (he does this every now and then) but now they're all over the place. This is more normal for him, he's never napped well. It makes no difference what his naps are like during the day, bedtime is always a battle.
So basically he will just climb/crawl all over his cot and our bed, stand up and run around the cot, ask for a drink, headbutt us, do anything rather than lie down and go to sleep. For the first time since he's been born I feel we've made a rod for our own back by co-sleeping and now having the side off the cot - because it's not safe to leave him in the bedroom alone. We have a playpen set up in their which we put him in when things get too much, but we never leave him for more than a minute because I want him to have positive sleep associations and I am completely against CIO or even CC. We literally leave him for a minute so we can calm down. It's very stressful and I don't want to end up shouting at him (or worse) so sometimes I feel like I need to take a few deep breaths outside the room.
Usually what happens is eventually he will calm down enough to nurse, I'll take him off periodically and ask him if he's ready to go to sleep. Sometimes he'll scream and I'll let him back on and try again a bit later. Sometimes he rolls off by himself. If I let him fall asleep at the breast I've found he needs to feed again every sleep cycle so I try and avoid it.
If he doesn't eventually wind down like this, increasingly we're finding he cries through what I assume is tiredness. He gets into a huge state and is often inconsolable which is absolutely heartbreaking.
I am at my wits end. He's going to sleep later and later each night and waking earlier. I just want my baby to go to sleep at night without hearing his breath upset from crying and without DH and I feeling resentful, irritated and then ultimately guilty every night.
We've gone from dinner as a family about 6.30 and bedtime at 7.30 (asleep on average about 9) to dinner at 5, bedtime at 6.30 (asleep around 8.30)
Can anyone relate/help? I suspect separation anxiety plays a part. I can't leave the room at bedtime without him screaming the place down and he won't be comforted by anyone else. Will this pass?