Hi,
I was after some advice... A couple of months ago our son (17 months old at the time) suddenly seemed to stop being able to go to sleep on his own in the evening. He'd been a great sleeper up until that point (12 hours/night, in bed for 7/7.30 pm, smilling and saying 'night night' as we left the room). It coincided with getting rid of his dummy, which he'd only ever had for sleep time, but we'd found out he didn't have at nursery. So we thought we'd try him without it at home too because we thought he didn't need it.
The first week or so we stayed with him to settle him, as he was a bit upset he didn't have his dummy. However, this has progressed to us still not being able to leave the room until he goes to sleep (if we do he screams and screams). We have tried controlled crying for a few days but he made himself sick, and to be honest, we really couldn't do it.
We've been staying with him (the first few nights close to his cot, then moving further away from the cot, to now sitting by the door, reassuring him we're still there), but it just seems a bit silly that he used to go to sleep fine, but now basically insists we're with him til he's asleep. It normally takes about 20 minutes, but some nights he can take over an hour-to an hour and a half to settle (it doesn't seem to correspond with how much sleep he's had during the day). He just seems to need reassuring we're still there. He mainly sleeps through, but sometimes still seems to need us to settle him back off during the night (normally resulting with either him in our bed or one of us on his bedroom floor).
Does anyone else have similar experience of this? It's been a couple of months now. I was hoping it was a phase, but am starting to think we've got him into a pattern of needing us to be there.
I've just re-read this - sorry it's such a ramble... Thanks in advance for any advice!