Cry it out for the first with toddler (20 months) will it work??

[Lioncar]

we need sleep, all of us. But we're not getting much.

We've never done any sleep training with our 20 month old and I have never ever done CIO but his sleep is far from great, at the best he will sleep 7.30-5am but 5am is mostly unheard of. Its usually anythjng from 3.30-4.20am. Also he sometimes still wakes throughout the night as well as getting up around 4.

He is very needy in that if we leave him in the cot when he wakes up he gets completely hystrical and then won't let us pick him or put him down, its just really awful because he is clearly too tired to be awake but won't go back to sleep.

Tried everything I can think off, bottle when he wakes, everything in his room is by the book for a good night sleep; cool, completely dark, white noise to drown out noise...

Last resort we think we might leave him to cry but I just don't know if this is the right thing to do with him because of just how worked up he gets.

Anyone is advice on sleep training a toddler please help meeeeeeee

Does he nap in the day?

Have you tried putting him down a little later?

We sleep trained at 20 months which did involve just letting him cry. It worked for us. My son had never slept through before that and would regularly wake for periods of 2 hours in the middle of the night.

How does he fall asleep? Absolute key to cracking sleep for us, was him learning to self settle at bedtime without us in the room. Not going to lie, the first few nights were tough and there were tears but we cracked it within 3-4 nights and I would never have believed that before. Now when he wakes in the night, he’ll often grizzle for 5 minutes but then roll over and drift back off. It’s also stopped him waking as early. Still an early bird but more 6ish than 4:30 which we went through at one point.

Cry it out didn't work for me. My son's just gone through the 2 year sleep regression (he did the 1 year one too) and both times I had to change how I put him to bed. The first time I tried cry it out and it was heartbreaking, I did it 2-3 times but it hurt too much to continue.

He went through the rest of that sleep regression falling asleep on me and one day he just decided he didn't want to fall asleep on me anymore. Put him back in the cot and he went out like a light.

This time nothing was helping, he wouldn't sleep on me, he wouldn't sleep in his room, it was a disaster. I was sitting in his room until he fell asleep but that wasn't a long term solution either.

I started doing the delayed return thing. Go in, settle, leave for one minute, go in, settle, leave for two minutes etc. He started off horrendous with it but soon got better and then for whatever reason he decided it wasn't going to work anymore.

For the past week he's been falling asleep on me again so it's come full circle.

There are many methods to try before cry it out. Please do a bit of research before you resort to it ❤️ and good luck, I wish you all the best. Sleep deprivation is awful

With dd1 we moved her into a toddler bed and started using a gro clock at 17/18 months.

she really got the idea straight away that it wasn’t getting up time until the sun came up. Initially i set it for the time she woke up naturally then (c.5am i think) but then after a while moved it forwards by 10 mins every few days until we reached 7am. She still often woke earlier (6am+), but played quietly in her room until the sun on her clock appeared. I think she liked the certainty of knowing. Maybe worth a try?

Some kids just don't sleep through. DS is 5 and a half and has only reliably slept through for around 6 months. He'd always wake around 2am-4am and one of us would sleep in the spare bed with him for the last few hours.
Leaving him to cry wouldn't have worked for us.

Around that age my eldest became afraid of the dark. Try a nightlight op.

CIO never works. If he is up and crying then something is wrong.

@Scubalubs87

We sleep trained at 20 months which did involve just letting him cry. It worked for us. My son had never slept through before that and would regularly wake for periods of 2 hours in the middle of the night.

How does he fall asleep? Absolute key to cracking sleep for us, was him learning to self settle at bedtime without us in the room. Not going to lie, the first few nights were tough and there were tears but we cracked it within 3-4 nights and I would never have believed that before. Now when he wakes in the night, he’ll often grizzle for 5 minutes but then roll over and drift back off. It’s also stopped him waking as early. Still an early bird but more 6ish than 4:30 which we went through at one point.

Did he cry for long when you started? My son screams and really gets hysterical if I try leaving him or even if my husband tries to comfort him. He's fine for my husband to put him to bed but during the night and first thing in the morning, if my husband goes in my son ends up completely inconsolable and the only thing that calms him down is letting him look out ofnthe bedroom window... this obviously helps wake him up more too but honestly I just don't know what to do anymore