Sudden Toddler Screaming at Bedtime

[mairimac]

My son has slept pretty well most of the time on his own from early on but he is now 19 months and the last month whenever we put him to bed he starts screaming hysterically.
He used to say night night when we put him down, now he just gets so upset he makes himself sick. I can't understand what is wrong, or what has happened. He is okay as long as either myself or his father are in the room until he falls asleep - which can sometimes take hours as he keeps checking we are still there. Any ideas, advice, suggestions. If I stay with him am I creating a vice he won't then give up?

My lad (17 months) started doing that about a month ago after the best part of a year of going down pretty much without a squeak. No obvious reason why at all either. It's absolutely thrilling isn't it!

Anyway, we couldn't figure out what was making him so unhappy - nice full tummy, clean nappy, relaxing bath, no illness - everything was same as usual. Figured maybe it was some sort of separation anxiety brought on by god knows what.

What we did was just stand there at the cot without doing anything, just saying stuff like "it's okay, just sit down etc." (when he stood up and started shouting again). Eventually he'd fall asleep (initially after over an hour) whereupon whichever one it was would creep out. Over a couple of weeks, we just did that, each time a bit further away from his cot, until after the first week, you'd just be at his door (open) with your back to him (so he could see you but didn't have eye contact). By the end of the second week he was back to normal. Not a great way to spend the evenings I know, but by the second week you could stand there with your back to him drinking a glass of wine and reading which helped kill the time!

We were concerned about creating a vice, but it didn't seem to. Kinda figured if there's no real interaction which was withdrawn slowly he wouldn't be getting dependent on too much and given the alternative was him howling like his cot was on fire it seemed the best case!

Hope this helps