My DC is 20 months and has never been a great sleeper. They have slept through the night twice in 20 months. Sometimes they can be up 4 or 5 times a night, sometimes twice, there's really no pattern.
Up until a few weeks ago, DC would wake up, I would give them a bottle(not ideal at 20 months but when you work full time and have ashift working husband who isn't around much you do what you need to) and then they would fall asleep on me and I would be able to transition them into the cot. The process would repeat 2 or 3 times a night but at least I would get a bit of sleep between.
The last few weeks I've done the same, except after their bottle, they will not go back into their cot. I wait until they are sound asleep, but as soon as their head hits that pillow the crying starts, and if I don't pick them up they will cry until they're hysterical. The other night it took 2 hours of attempting to put them down before I finally managed it.
I have tried changing them when they wake as we are having issues with some leaking nappies (bad batch from Asda I think) but this results in more screaming. I've tried cutting the milk out (more crying) and not picking them up but gently rubbing, patting etc (more crying!)
I don't really mind DC wanting to sleep on me, however it can't be good for them to have a whole night of broken sleep when they then have a full day of nursery all day, plus we have a really uncomfortable chair in their room so it's not like I can sleep! I have asked hubby for a new chair but the room is very small so not sure that's an option.
The only change we have made recently is moved from sleeping bags to a duvet (not a pillow as hubby didn't think they needed one) but everything else has stayed the same.
I'm not up for trying controlled crying or crying it out as we have tried these before and DC just made themselves sick so I won't put them through this again.
We also have a myhummy bear (didn't work!)
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.