Am I doing the right thing?

[Rachthecave]

My DS is 16 months and has been sleeping terribly since he was 12 months. He used to sleep in bed with us but woke continuously throughout the night so we saw a nursery nurse and she advised us to start putting him to sleep in his cot which we did. It took us about a week and he seemed to start settling down and sleeping better for a couple of weeks. Now he's back to square one, crying hysterically for an hour before he goes to sleep, waking up for hours in the night crying and my partner goes away for work for 3 months in a couple of days and I don't know what to do. I'm a big believer in gentle parenting and I haven't let either of my children 'cry it out'. I stand next to him by the cot until he falls asleep and try to comfort him but he pushes me away and I feel like by not taking him out of the cot which he wants, I'm letting him 'cry it out' in a way. I'm literally at the end of my tether, I've not had more then a few hours of sleep at night in 16 months and I just don't know what to do anymore.

Why not try co sleeping again. He may now sleep through next to you. Also, keep the room as dark as possible, I've found that really helps both of my children. And have you checked for worms, waking, wriggling and squirming in the night is a classic sign of worms.

If you pop him down in his cot and leave the room does he start crying or will he just roll around babbling to himself?

Could he be overtired and that's why he's hysterical for an hour before you put him down?

How about making up a bed on his floor? I did this with DC1 and it did work. They settled down knowing I was there and I was able to leave once they were asleep. If they woke up I went back in and slept on the floor. If you’re serious about not co-sleeping (and I don’t judge either way) then you need to be consistent in establishing their bedroom as the sleeping space, not yours.

How long does he nap for? And what time does he wake up?

I've thought about it but if it doesn't work I feel like il be back to square one again. I haven't thought about works, would they just been in his poo? I haven't seen anything.

He doesn't have his own bedroom unfortunately and won't be able to until we can buy a bigger house but do you think it would work if I did it in our bedroom?

He normally naps for about 2 hours and the latest I let him sleep till is 3pm.

He used to start crying as soon as I put him in the cot but now he's crying as soon as we go in the bedroom to get ready for bed. Think it's because he knows he's going to have to go in the cot 😔

Sorry I explained it wrong, he starts crying when I start getting him ready for bed. He's napping for 2 hours or more every day and I'm making sure I start his bedtime routine as soon as I start seeing him get tired so I don't think he's overtired

What time is bedtime? I think at that age they typically need around 5.5hrs between nap and bedtime, maybe not tired enough? Sorry you're going through a tough time, sleep deprivation is the worst. We ended up using a sleep consultant and it saved us.

It's normally 5 hours after nap time, that's when he starts getting tired. The nursery nurse that I saw thought that I was putting him to bed too late 🤷 thank you, I know it will get better in the end but it's been rough 4 months

You know what?

I'd co sleep again.

Unpopular opinion on here but you do what you have to do to ensure that everyone gets a decent nights sleep and you've got a happy, secure and settled baby.

He'll graduate to his own bed in due course.

Earlier nap, earlier bedtime?

I'm happy to co sleep with him, we did with my daughter until she was 4 but he just doesn't sleep in the bed with us, he can't move around as much as he'd like and it wakes him up and gets angry haha. And we've got a superking bed!

Il try it, thanks.

Sleep isn’t linear. This is why all these sleep tricks and gurus don’t really work. Just like us, children go through periods of sleeping well and waking lots. I’d start co-sleeping again. My approach was always to do whatever got me the most sleep. When it was easy for them to sleep in their own beds without any sort of effort on my part, then they did. But it was much more important for me to be coping and well rested than to stick to some strict prescriptive routine. When they did move to their own beds, it was like they’d always slept there. But you’ve likely got a couple years still of these phases when sleep goes tits up, I’d not make it so hard on yourself especially if you’re solo parenting for a time. If you need more space, your Dh sleeps separately. My Dh slept on a single mattress on the floor for a year. We were both very happy to not be sleep deprived.