2 year old will not sleep, desperately need advise

[Mumdadneedsleep]

DD turns 2 in March and I’m expecting our second in Feb. Every night for the last 3 months DD has been refusing any kind of sleep.. she screams for hours to the point of throwing up if we try to get her to sleep. We’ve tried everything - no naps, more naps, later bedtime, earlier bedtime, less food, more food, calpol, cut out dairy, let her make choices etc. Nothing is working! It’s gotten to a point where both DH and I are having a breakdown every night.. We’re absolutely desperate, we just don’t know what to do

That sounds exhausting :(
How long has it been going on for? What gets her to sleep in the end?
This age is about the right age for nightmares I believe. Can you remember if she woke up scared one night? Have you tried a night light or similar?

Sorry lots of questions!

Oh dear, that sounds utterly exhausting I honestly don’t have advise, but when our toddler has had his worst nights (when he’s been sick mostly), what we’ve done is let him watch cartoons in our dark living room. Sometimes we’ve even put a mattress on the floor where the other parent can lay with him watching while the other one sleeps in proper bed. This way the house is quiet at least and everyone eventually gets a bit of sleep at least. This is what we’ve done on desperate nights. If it’s a “regular bad night” I will normally sleep next to him, as we have a guest bed in his bedroom next to the cot.

I feel for you as I find any night wakings from our 2 year old quite hard to deal with, with the loud crying etc it’s somehow much more annoying than it was when he was a small baby. My limit seems to be 2 nights, if there’s third night with disturbance I start to lose my temper, snapping to my DH etc. It sucks. I don’t know how I could ever handle months of that at this point. We’re also expecting a baby in a few months, but I don’t dread the nights with a newborn that much.

I’ve got the contacts of a sleep consultant who’s really helped me with our two year old and baby but I don’t know the rules of the site and whether I can give you her details? I don’t mean to be advertising but she’s really helped! Anyway, babysleepthenight is her website and her name is Emma.

@Rosebud1302 It’s been going on for about 3 months. She normally falls asleep after exhausting herself by screaming but it can take hours. She has had nightmares before and still comes into our bed at night. She does have a night light but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference

@WingingItOverHere Thank you, I’ll have a look