I have a nearly 2 year old who is being a nightmare with sleep! He is my 2nd child, he used to sleep through from around 8 months old and once he hit around 1.5 years he has got worse and worse. He is usually up once a night, sometimes for 20 mins but has been as long as a hour and half, this seems to be settling a bit now but still hit and miss as to him being up at night or not. With our first born we did controlled crying but its hard to do that now as the second is so much older than when we did controlled crying with the first and the obvious not wanting to wake the first up! I could cope with 1 night waking for a easy life and to let me eldest sleep, but what is killing us all is he is also up at around 5-530am, by 10am he is a mess, angry, crying moody boy!
His naps were everyday happily for 1-1.5 hours and he now fights those but will sleep in the car, but sometimes just isn't tired for a nap at all if he's had a good night.
I am also 7 months pregnant and really feel the time pressure to get him sleeping is approaching too fast and stressing me out! He'll only settle if I go in to his room, so my husband usually goes through the night time battle if he wakes at night as at least we can all go back to sleep but Im up for the 5am one as we don't want him crying and waking the eldest, when I say crying its ANGRY loud crying!
I know one potential mistake I make with him is when he goes to bed I sit in there with him holding his hand, I dont speak to him or anything other than hold his hand, but its a habit he got into when he first started waking 6 months ago that I dont know how to get out of. He is not in a cot as he was looking like he was going to just fall or climb out so is in a single bed with a stair gate on the door. We have wondered if he wakes looking for me as I was there then not, so could try leaving him when he goes to bed but it will be a lot of screaming and putting back into bed for Im not sure what gain as I imagine he'll still be up at 5 and at 5 we need to pounce unless everyone is up at 5 which doesn't seem fair on my very young 4 year old who has just started school full time!
We have a nightlight on too. He needs more sleep, he's so angry all the time, and such a different child when he sleeps better, but dont know how to get him there!
Anyone any advice?!