Aside from a phase I had around about a year with my DD, she was an excellent sleeper until about a month ago. She napped for 1.5-2h each day (12-2 ish) and would go to bed b/w 7:15-7:30 and sleep until 7am. Always the same bedtime routine of bath, milk and bed with her sheep (that plays ocean sounds).
All of a sudden, she won't go to bed without either my DH or I rocking her to sleep. She screams the minute she goes into her cot, and will only fall asleep with one of us rocking her in the chair, and then transferring her to her cot. Some nights this takes AGES. She also won't settle herself back to sleep at night either, and we're often up and down at all hours. We have no evenings, and very few nights at the moment and I'm at wits end!
The thing is, she is tired - you can see that. She just won't settle on her own and needs us to do it.
Similar happens now at nap time - she won't go to bed unless rocked to sleep (at nursery of course she goes down fine, it's just at home).
I just feel a bit lost, and not sure what to do about it. We've tried controlled crying, but she gets so worked up and screams so hard, it seems to have the opposite effect. I've found it really difficult to stick to doing this too.
She still seems to need her daytime nap as she gets tired by lunchtime, so not keen to cut that out yet, but she does often wake naturally after an hour rather than her usual 2 at the moment.
Does anyone have any advice?