Can anyone help us come up with a plan for DS who is now 15 months old?
Since 8-9 mos old he has been a pretty bad sleeper - typically up about 3-4 times in the evening before we go to bed and then multiple times during the 'real' night.
He was in a cot in his own room but I got fed up of getting up and getting cold in the night so for the last 3 months we have been taking DS into bed with us when we went to bed; this worked for a while but now he is not sleeping well even in bed with us, waking up frequently to pull my or my partner's hair (his chosen soothing ritual - not helped by the fact I truly loathe and despise anyone playing with or touching my hair!).
He is now at the point where he won't go into his cot at all unless he is sound asleep...and he only stays that way for 40 minutes at best in any case. Even when he appears to be sound asleep he will awaken and start really screaming like a banshee when he feels us lowering him into a cot.
With DD we used elizabeth pantley with pretty good results; with DS I am struggling to find anything in it to help: comforters/ luvvies (tried - he angrily throws them away); changing person who responds to him (when he gets DP as opposed to me, he cries absolutely hysterically until he nearly makes himself sick and is doing that 'ticking' thing). He is not a suck-to-sleeper, but does definitely need a parental presence to get him to sleep unless he's in the car/ pushchair.
Day naps are 2x40 minutes if we're out and about and 1x 1h 30 if we're at home and I can be bothered to go up every 20 minutes to resettle him.
He has never been able to self-settle at all - it's gotta be movement, patting and singing. Just as an experiment the other night we decided to see what would happen if we didn't take steps to get him to sleep of an evening. Result - he stayed awake till 1 am seemingly happily playing with his toys and not once looking sleepy 
.
I would like to try gradual withdrawal but can't really see how it will help with him because even putting him in the cot and lying next to him will provoke screaming/ vomiting.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. Can anyone come up with a master plan??!