Cannot get 2yo to self settle.

[PickledLily]

She's always been a rubbish sleeper (silent reflux partly to blame). We had a couple of months where I could put her to bed and just hold her hand while she fell asleep (it took months to get to that point), but then she got very ill, slept in with us and I've not been able to get her to fall asleep without cuddling in her own bed since. She wakes in the middle of the night and will fall asleep on me but screams and thrashes around (waking herself up completely in the process) as soon as I put her back into her bed. She ends up only getting about 9-10 hours sleep and needing a nap by mid morning.

She's only ever slept through 2 or 3 times in her life (usually just before getting a bug). We are all exhausted and fed up! Any suggestions?

Have you tried gradual retreat type approaches, or just continuing to put her back in her bed by herself at bedtime?

She gets more and more awake and agitated when I try. Then she's awake for at least an hour before she will settle again.

I'm trying to think back to how we managed to do it the first time around. I don't think we did anything different, she just suddenly started settling.

I think you probably need to pick a strategy and stick with it for a while, even if it doesn't work immediately.

Hi my DD was much the same at 14 months. I did gradual retreat with her so started first two nights just holding her hand, then next two with hand on cot, then sitting by cot then inching away each night until you are by the door then eventually outside it. It took quite a while as I went quite slowly with her and there were still a few nights where she would cry and get cross for up to an hour but she would eventually settle down and go to sleep. I felt OK because I was there (and not leaving her to cry alone) and I could reassure her that she was just tired and it was time to sleep. It helps to keep reminding yourself that they will go to sleep eventually - sometimes it feels like they have been crying for ages but is actually only about 20 minutes! An iPad or kindle etc is handy for passing the time…

We've had any number of regressions since then (illness/travel etc) but that same technique still works (although I now skip straight to sitting by the door then outside the door).

I also found that music/talking books really helped her settle and stay settled and it was something I could leave on for her when leaving the room. She still sleeps now with classical music playing quietly all night. She also has a stars projector which seems to help relax her.

One final thing - if she is ill, I usually try and go to her (and sleep in her room if necessary) rather than bring her into our bed - it seems to make it easier to sort out the sleep regression afterwards as not such a change.

Of course, now we have DD2, doing the above is a lot harder…

Gradual retreat is what we did, but it took alot longer than a few weeks! Her record for acting up was 2 hours, after which I gave up trying to increase the distance from her cot. It took us several months to get her to settle first time around. She's a very touchy-feely toddler, really likes her skin-to-skin contact and i've effectively become her comforter (not that she would ever take to using a cuddly toy or comfort blanket).

One of the issues is that I'm never quite sure if she's playing up for the sake of it or it's her reflux bothering her, so have been reluctant to do controlled crying (before anyone suggests it).

If I sleep in the room with her, she thinks it's play time. Unfortunately she sleeps really well in our bed, but we don't.