Hi. Other than a few blips here and there our 15 month old has generally been a good sleeper. We were in a routine of him having just one nap a day straight after his lunch at around 12:30ish, and it usually lasts around 2 hours. We’ve been doing this for around 3 months and it was going well and his night sleep was mostly good.
For the last week he is screaming the house down every time we put him in his cot at bedtime or for his nap. Yesterday he missed his nap and ended up having 30 mins in the car because I couldn’t get him to sleep any other way. He usually self settles himself to sleep, we’ve never done any ‘sleep training’, he just started doing this when he was about 6 months old by lying in his cot with a muslin until he dozed off. This has stopped working and as soon as he’s placed in his cot he stands up screaming. He doesn’t fall asleep in the pram or by being cuddled or anything like that, he’s never been a cuddly baby. I would happily do this if it would get him to sleep. The other night I rocked him to sleep but this took 45 mins, I’m not physically very strong and he’s 25lb so it’s not manageable for me to do this each day. He won’t let me rock him sat down, only stood up.
He’s never shown any signs of separation anxiety before but lately he is acting differently by following me from room to room and constantly holding his arms out to be picked up, something which he hasn’t done before, so could this be a separation anxiety thing? Will it pass? It breaks my heart hearing him scream but I just don’t know how to get him to sleep and I don’t want to leave him to cry it out.