Dealing with 21 month old waking at night

[GeorgeandtheSleepDragon]

DS is 21 months, (19 corrected as he was prem), we've been really lucky and after a pretty bad start he's generally been a pretty good sleeper from about 4 months. Since he was 6 months DH or I have held him till he's asleep then transferred his to his cot no problem, it's taken about 10 mins for him to fall asleep so, although people have told us we're creating a rod for our own backs, it's worked for us. On the rare occasion he's woken in the night we've done the same and that's worked too. However, in the last month he's started waking in the night crying pretty much every night. If I sit holding him in his room he falls asleep again but as soon as I try to move him back into his cot he senses it and wakes up and cries, so I've been having to sit for several hours some nights until he's fully asleep to be able to transfer him without him waking. I've tried taking him into our bed but he just gets really exited and wants to play. Last night at 2am in desperation I tried leaving him in his cot and going in to reassure him every few minutes but he was still crying after 30 mins and I got worried about annoying our neighbours. I work part time and am really busy at work at the moment with a job that involves a lot of concentration, I'm also not very well physically (I'm currently undergoing tests for some pretty scary conditions) so I'm really struggling to function on minimal sleep and feeling pretty overwhelmed by everything. Any ideas on tackling the sleep issue would be really helpful.

The problem here is that baby is not going to sleep where he stays asleep. This is the Rod For Your Back people mentioned.

If you want him to sleep in the cot, he needs to go from fully awake to asleep in the cot. If you want to cuddle to sleep, the way to do this is to lie down and cosleep to get baby to sleep, then leave him to sleep in your bed without you. So your initial decision needs to be which of these you want to aim for - the cuddles of co sleeping or the independence of the cot.

"...sleep in your bed without with you"

Thanks Fate for your quick reply, we want him in his cot, I hear people talking about putting their babies/toddlers in the cot awake and letting them fall asleep on their own but not sure how to go about this as DS would just stand up and cry. Do you have any ideas on how to do that? I'd be massively grateful for any tips as this last week has pretty much broken me

Putting down awake is something to start doing from newborn. There's no two ways about it, it's going to be hard and and involve a lot of crying at 21 months. It would be hard for a held-to-sleep non mobile 6 month old. You have a standing, walking and much more demanding toddler age child, so it will be very much harder.

Therefore this begins with realistic expectations. If you can't be consistent and calm through loads of angry, frustrated screaming then you would be better finding ways to make cosleeping work.

I would suggest you put baby in the cot and get yourself a comfy chair next to the cot. Set your expectations that you could be in for a very long night and it may take a long , long time to get baby to sleep. But console yourself that you are right there helping him all of the time.

I would start of repeatedly lying him back down. Over and over again. Lie him down and place your hand firmly on his chest. If He wriggles to get up then lift him just slightly and put back down. Repeat over and over until he stays still with your hand on his chest. Then just wait, motionless, until hes asleep keeping your hand on his chest until deeply asleep.

Over time work towards just putying hand on chest to calm him, then just stand and wait for him to go to sleep. Then stand further away and whatnwhatnot. But these are longer term views. For now, just concentrate on getting him to go to sleep in the cot.

Mine is younger, but from newborn always fell asleep the same way as yours, being cuddled and then put into cot.
Not long ago we started putting her in her cot while awake, and just sitting or laying next to the cot holding her hand through the bars, or patting her back or belly so she's still got the comfort of her parents but is falling asleep in her cot.
I think it took about a week or two to get her used to it, although yours might take longer since he's older? Not sure.

Unless she's very tired, mine still prefers us to be in the room til she falls asleep, but it's easier now as we can just sit there and play on the phone or something while she's nodding off, sometimes anyway, sometimes we still need to hold hands through the bars.

All we did is-
lay her down.
Hold hands or rub her back/belly through the bars.
Anytime she tried to sit up or stand up, just lay her back down or gently push back down before she can even sit up.
If she starts trying to talk to us (will get louder and louder and wake herself up more unless we respond), just saying quietly shhh, sleep time.

We also got one of those projector lights, and now she knows it goes on at bedtime so it helps slightly and we put a biggish teddy for her to just feel like she's cuddled up to something/body.

Do you think this could work for you too? I know they change loads in these first few years, and what works now might not work in 6 months.

I transferred my dd2 and later ds to beds from around 18 months so I could lie with them but leave when they fell asleep. Barriers on, cushions on the floor, stair gate on the door.

Hi all, thanks got your replies, they're very much appreciated. Just a quick update. After another horrendous night last week DH and I agreed we needed to take action and start being consistent in getting DS to sleep in his cot so that hopefully when he woke in the night he'd be more likely to settle again without needing to be held. I spoke to various friends IRL who had done sleep training and followed their instructions. I was also reassured by my lovely gentle DM that she'd had to resort to sleep training with me as a toddler and I can't even remember it!

We started on night 1 by getting DS ready for bed as per our usual routine, but instead of holding him till he fell asleep I put him straight in his cot, hugged him and told him I loved him very much but it was time to sleep and I would just be in the next room but would come back in 3 mins to give him a goodnight kiss in 3 if he still needed me (if he was crying). I then lay him down and left. As expected he stood up and started to cry which was heart breaking. I set the timer for 3 mins and then went back in to kiss him as promised and repeated the same set of words and left for 5 mins, then 7 mins, then 9 mins, then 10 mins. By the time we got to 7 mins there were patches where he did stop crying and the crying he was doing was less intense. I then did another 10 mins and on that visit he just accepted me lying him down, took his dummy and went to sleep! So that was 44 mins in total.

He woke crying at 3am that night so we repeated the process and that time he decided to accept lying down and went back to sleep after we got to the first 10 min interval, so he was asleep in 34 mins total. He also stopped crying quite a few times during the process and his crying was much less intense. He then slept till 8am and I actually had to wake him up for the day!!

On the second night we repeated the process and to our utter amazement he accept me lying him down and went to sleep after the 5 min interval, so he was asleep within 8 mins!!! Even more amazingly he then slept through till 7.30am!!!!

On the third night (tonight) I thought perhaps last night was a fluke and prepared for a difficult time, but this time he accepted me lying him down after the 3 min interval, but did get up and grizzle a bit again but then lay down and went to sleep after the 5 min interval, so again he was asleep in 8 mins. It's 11pm here and he's sleeping soundly, fingers crossed for another good night.

He's been in a lovely mood these last few days, probably due to having proper sleep for the first time in a month, and we've also felt much better for the sleep and so have had a great family weekend together. I know sleep training doesn't work for everyone but it does seem to have really worked for us, touch wood!