Hi,
I am the dad of a beautiful, energetic, bright, loud, determined, hilarious little 16-month-old boy who is the life and soul everywhere he goes by day, but come evening, he is a different child. He inexplicably slept through the night in his cot on three successive nights when he was 11 months, but those are the only times he has done so. He rarely puts 2 sleep cycles together (sleeps in 30-60 min stretches in the evening) and has always cried as if terrified when he wakes up, making him very difficult to settle. He sleeps in our bed as, after 6 months of trying the cot, he eventually climbed out (which required him to get his leg to head-height) and fell onto the floor, a distressing experience for us all. He has never been able to drift off to sleep on his own, and every attempt to let him do so (many, many times since 3 months) has always ended in hysterical screaming, sometimes with vomiting. He has always hated the car seat (screamed his way out of the hospital at 1 day old), buggy, moses basket, highchair and cot. He LOVES breastfeeding (his face is a picture of ecstasy when he feeds!) and it's very difficult to get him to eat solid food (trying since 6 months), though his appetite is improving very slowly. We have had the same bath-low lights-stories-feed-lie down bedtime routine since birth. He has either one 2-hour lunchtime nap or sometimes a 30-min morning nap plus a 90-min lunchtime one. When awake, he NEVER stops moving and investigating things. He crawled at 8 months and walked at 11 months. He seems to find it extremely hard to switch off at the end of the day, and the idea of bed/sleep seems to really worry/scare him. Ideally he would like his mummy with him all evening, but obviously we would like some time off together. I have a great relationship with him, but he seems to see me as the one for fun and my wife as the one for comfort. It's sad to watch him getting so distressed at bedtime, and we don't want it to become traumatic for him. We're not into CIO, but we don't mind a bit of crying if it will help him settle, though we've yet to see any evidence that it will (always escalates). Any attempt to put him to bed without the boob results in screaming that can go on for a LONG time (longest we have had is 50 minutes, but I stayed with him then). My wife has started to stop the feed then lie down with him and stroke him to sleep, which works better than it used to. The next step is for me to settle him every night for a week when he wakes up in the evenings. Sorry for rambling, I think I just want to know if anyone might have any ideas we've missed, or experience to share. Thanks for reading!