22 mth old sleep problems

[speaker]

Have been back from our holiday now for a week and since returning home dd has not settled in her cot. No problems sleeping on holiday at all (or before we went). Now she screams when we try to put her in her cot. She just wants to be cuddled in her chair but even then she won't always fall asleep and if she does as soon as you try to move she just cries and tells us to sit down. If we do manage to get her in her cot at bed time then she is often waking in the night. We have tried several times to let her scream in her cot - up to an hour one night (which is so horrible to listen to) - but she just gets more and more worked up and furious with us and then takes about 40 minutes to calm her down again. Should we let her cry even longer? A couple of times we have ended up spending a couple of nights with her in our spare room (which I vowed I would never do) where she settles fine. Obviously I don't want to keep this up (her sleeping with one of us).

We thought maybe she was ready to go into her own bed and therefore we changed her cot/bed into a bed two nights ago. First night and next day's afternoon sleep went fine but we were back to square one again last night.

Any advice? We are thinking of changing her bed back into a cot so we can just let her scream in a more controlled environment rather than her getting out of her bed (or falling over the side barrier).

I think she has learnt that when she cries she can get the attention from you. I would use eithre pick up put down or controlled crying as going in and cuddling etc all the time is reinforcing the behaviour. I know my ds who is 22mths can protest about getting into bed and sometimes will stand at his gate shouting but i just tell him its time to sleep and that im there but he needs to go to bed. I tend not to go into the room itself as then he plays up even more.

Thanks for reply. Had a successful night although not counting our chickens yet. We decicdd to take off her side barrier so that we didn't worry about her falling over it if she starts to stand up in her bed and cry (like she used to in her cot). Just put a couple of mattresses and padding on the floor. She fell out of bed once but we managed to put her back in her bed and then that was it until 6.30am this morning. Glad we've not decided to go back to the cot. Fingers crossed for another good night!