Sleep training a 20 month old

[Claire78564]

Hi, I'm looking for some advice regarding sleep training my 20 month old son.

I understand there will be lots of people out there who disagree with sleep training but we have exhausted all our options. I have contacted the health visitor who wasn't much help. I'm also 34 weeks pregnant which is adding to the stress.

My son was breastfed until 12 months. For the first 4 months everything was typical of his behaviour regarding sleeping. We could put him in his cot and leave him to fall asleep without being picked up (whilst we were in the room). He moved to his own room at 6 months and continued to wake 8-9 times a night. He would only sleep at 30 min intervals for his naps during the day and would only nap in his pram.

I was able to knock that on its head and get him sleeping for his naps in his cot but it took some doing.

At 12 months he finally started to sleep through and did so until he got to 17 months. Infact I had begun to put him in his cot for naps where he would have at least 2 hours without me having to rock him to sleep in the first place..
He then caught foot and mouth from nursery and since then he's been terrible. He went from settling himself to sleep to waking every half an hour. Me and his dad ended up just staying in our bedroom so we were close by and took it in turns to settle him. I can tell you I spent many a night crying after he had gone back down wondering what the he'll I'm doing wrong.

We started sitting him his room and not picking him up and telling him its okay. Most of the time we would have to pick him up because he would get so upset he would start coughing. Eventually we got him down to 1-2 wakings but never sleeping past 5:30. It's killing us.

I have been looking at the Ferber method and wonder if people have had success with this?

I'm writing this now whilst I sit next to him screaming on an off asking for milk standing up wanting to get out of his cot. I've been I here 2 hours and every time he starts to settle ten mins later he sits up crying.

His routine is as follows:

Tea - 5:30
Bath - 6:30
Pj's milk and cuddles - 7
Usually asleep anywhere between 7-7:30.
His day time nap is roughly 2 hours at 11:30.

I've tried moving his bed time earlier and later. I've tried longer and shorter naps.

The only thing we haven't tried is putting down at bedtime awake. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Apologies for the long post x

@FATEdestiny is the person to ask about sleep training.

Ferber wouldn't be for me so I can't comment on that, but I'm not one of those people who would claim you'd be damaging your child by doing it either - it's just one option re sleep training. At various points in my son's life I've spent hours sat by his cot stroking his back until he fell asleep, while pregnant too - so I really do get how you're feeling. It is really hard.

When DS wouldn't resettle in the evening, I'd get him out of his cot (and sometimes sleeping bag too), turn on a dim lamp and do the last bit of his bedtime routine again (book, cuddles, white noise on, light off, singing and back rub) and it almost always worked at getting him back off for a longer stretch. It helped reset us both I think. Lots of people would advise against doing that, but it really worked for us.
DS is 2 now and often sleeps through, but if he does wake up and it's after midnight then DH or I will just go and cosleep with him in his room to avoid the long tedious night time resettling (he has a double floor bed so it's easy).