DS2 is 15 months. In sleep terms he is two different babies. At nursery, they pop him in the cot, he rolls over and goes to sleep (his keyworker has repeatedly described him as the easiest baby to get to sleep they have). At home, he is a nightmare.
He was a decent sleeper (for his age) until six months old, at which point a combination of weaning/food intolerance and constant bouts of bronchiolitis and wheezing sent everything to hell in a handcart. We now finally have the food issues and his asthma largely under control and sleep has improved a lot now he's not waking up with stomach pain/coughing fits. He's pretty much down to one/two wake ups usually and we've night weaned him. So, huge huge improvements on where we were only a couple of months ago.
But getting him to sleep at home is so hard. Although he self settles at nursery, he has only done this a handful of times at home. Most of the time if you put him in the cot awake he screams blue murder and always has done. So we have a combination of feeding to sleep (which is easy but relies on my presence) and rocking him (which he submits to but often fights like fury- but DH doesn't really have another option at the moment).
I'm fully aware that we have not done as much as we could have to encourage independent falling asleep at home, because until very very recently we were both just too bloody exhausted dealing with the stomach issues and the asthma. But now we're a bit less exhausted, I think I can face the prospect.
So, any advice on how to persuade a child who you know can self settle, to actually do it? He's never had a dummy, isn't interested in comforters (we've tried). Bed time routine is ok, though DS1 (4) is a bit of a limiting factor: I quite often have to do bedtime for both solo, and put DS1 to bed first, and if he's not being very cooperative then DS2 can end up a bit overtired and grumpy before I can put him to bed, which obviously doesn't help.