(Very) gradual withdrawal at bedtime

[PrincessBuggerPants]

First things first, my son (26months) has always been a TERRIBLE sleeper, and has a combination of low sleep needs and being very strong willed, particularly around bedtime.

We have just managed to reinstate him going to bed in his own bed, rather than in our arms, after two weeks of bed time wrestling matches. This was the second time we had done this.

I now want to work on him going to sleep on his own, without patting and singing lullabies which he still needs until he has gone to sleep.

But where do we start? The online guidelines for gradual withdrawal are far too rapid and abrupt for a child like him.

What has worked for other people with challenging toddlers?

Haven't tried it myself, but could you look at Lyndsey Hookway on Instagram/Facebook and her ideas about "habit stacking"? She is a very very gentle sleep coach.

I think the idea is that if you have a way to get your child to sleep but it's no longer working for you, you add one new thing to your child's bedtime routine and then hopefully they'll come to associate that with sleep and you can stop doing the old thing. So in your case for example you could maybe put on white noise while patting and singing lullabies, then gradually cut down on the patting and singing while still playing white noise, and then eventually your child will associate sleep with just the white noise.

That said, my son is a year younger than yours and we consider being able to get him to sleep with just a lullaby/story a great success. We started doing gradual retreat but never really did the retreat part because he normally sleeps through now so long as he falls asleep in his cot and not in our arms. Hope this continues, aware it might not...

Thanks so much for your suggestion of habit stacking. We have tried everything and it isn't something I have used before.

However, we already use a white noise machine and have done since he was tiny (did I mention we have tried everything?!) but will think about other ways we can emphasise other sleep signals we use to remove the patting perhaps.

I will look up Lyndsey Hookway.