2 year old sleep nightmare

[Notsleepinghelp]

My 27 month old has been sleeping terribly for the last 5 weeks. We thought initially it was separation anxiety as we’d recently moved house and that it would resolve itself but it’s getting worse.
They used to sleep 7:30-7 with a nap 12:30-2. Now we jump between a bed time battle, split night (last night was 12-4am!) or early rise. We’ve capped the nap to hour (usually 12:45-1:45) and made bed time later, been trying this for 2 weeks to no change!
They used to go to sleep independently but now we have to sit in a chair by their cot until they fall asleep (which can be 45 mins at bed time!), but they often wake when we get up to leave. And a wake in the night is a guaranteed split night of 2 hours at least. We’re so sleep deprived and willing to try anything at this point! We sleep trained at 8 months using Ferber but he gets so hysterical now if we don’t sit with him. Any advice on what to do?!

Drop the nap? Mine all did at about 2

Scary prospect but one I’m considering! We’re losing all our evenings trying to get him to sleep so the 1 hour in the day to ourselves doesn’t feel worth it!
The problem is that he definitely is sleepy at lunch time and goes down for his nap easily, so I’m worried that he does still need some kind of sleep then!

Hello we’re going through this exact same issue with my 16 month old, did anything end up working for you? X

@Rayma, you may get more replies starting your own thread, but split nights are often because you're trying for too much sleep in 24 hours. I'd add up how much sleep little one is actually getting (not counting time taken to fall asleep, time awake in the night), and figure out how to realistically split that between naps and night.

For example, I had low sleep needs children. At 16 months, DD1 slept roughly 8.30-6.00 with a one hour nap in the day, maybe slightly longer at nursery. DD2 was closer to 9.00-6.00. We didn't get more night sleep until they dropped the nap – and if you put them down earlier, they woke earlier, either a split night or a 4am start.

This genuinely feels like a lifetime ago now! You’ll be glad to know one day it stopped 🎉 a few things happened… firstly we went a bit cold turkey on the sitting by him (and did let him get a bit upset) and he had to go to sleep on his own. We also started putting a little night light on that turns off after 15 mins. He possibly just got over the phase too and the mad nights just stopped eventually.
Then he transferred to a single bed which we thought would be a nightmare but was totally fine, and I think he’s comfier in the bed than the cot (we moved him as he got too big for the cot).
The nap is fading away, he basically never naps in his bed when at home now, he just has a 30 min (ish) car nap when we go out. He naps about 45 mins at nursery (whatever sleep dust they sprinkle there needs to be shared!). Some days he has no nap and is basically fine. This all has made the 8-8:30pm bed time come back to 7:30pm, and he will sleep through until 7:15ish (or later!). The night time sleep is so good I don’t care that we’ve effectively lost the nap 😂
All my friends with children a similar age went through a rough sleep patch at around 2 years old and we’re all through it now. There is hope!

Disappearing chair method over a week to deal with the bedtime issue of having to sit in the room.