Will my 2 year old ever sleep well again?

[LilHan88]

My 26 month old DD has recently (3 months ago) become a big sister, and prior to this she slept so well (7pm - 7am every night since she was 6 months old). She hit a regression at 18 months, while I was still pregnant, but came out of it pretty quickly, and for the first few weeks after baby sister was born, my eldest slept great. About 2ish weeks ago this all started to change, and now she seems terrified to sleep in her room. She used to wake up happily and babble in the mornings, but now she wakes up at 5:30am every morning screaming hysterically. She refuses to sleep in her cot for naps, she’ll only fall asleep downstairs with us on the sofa, and at bed time she now cries for upwards of an hour before falling asleep (we check in and reassure her at regular intervals, but we’re wary of creating a sleep association by staying with her until she falls asleep). We’ve tried blackout blinds, white noise, a toddler clock with night light, and nothing seems to be working. I guess I just want reassurance from others who’ve gone through something similar and come out the other end? Does it get better?? Any advice would be much appreciated! :)

Has it improved @LilHan88?

I'd be inclined to think your DD needs some extra reassurance at bedtime, given all the significant changes and disruption she's going through.

Could her Dad stay nearby as she goes to sleep?

Thanks FATEdestiny, yes I think so too. The getting to sleep initially has improved, but she’s started waking up crying at 3am now :( we phoned the HV and she suggested a technique called ‘magic kisses’, which is a gentle sleep training method. We’re going to give that a go for a couple of weeks! We’re just wary of making her dependent on us to fall asleep, as we don’t want to create an association that wasn’t there before… it’s so hard!

If she is now two years old, how about changing her from cot into a toddler bed. And let her play in her room with toys a little later. Does she have a tv in the room? That can help distract her. Also my little one got afraid of shadows at that age so I had to place the nightlights close to her bed so they didn’t cast long shadows. And a bath helps too. It’s not easy with a toddler and new baby but they will be best of buddies growing up together.

How are you getting on now? In a similar position with 28 month old and 5 month old baby.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone! Things have almost gone back to normal now for us all :) DD1 is waking up anywhere between 7:15 and 7:45, and sleeping through the night again. She still cries a little when we put her to bed, but not for longer than a few minutes, so we’re just chalking that up to normal bedtime resistance. We implemented a new routine where we now sit with her for 5 minutes silently in a chair after we put her to bed, and then we leave and say ‘we’ll check on you in 10 minutes if you need us’, and she never does! For the early mornings we also started sitting with her until she went back into a light sleep, just to try and get her to break that cycle of waking up and staying awake. Ultimately though, I think what really helped was waiting it out until she got past this phase! Good luck to everyone in same situation! :)

Just stumbled across this and found it really reassuring. Our little girl has done exactly the same.

We found leaving her bedroom door wide open really helped her go down more quickly.

For night time waking, it was really just consistency and reassuring. To be honest, we just thought she's going through a lot so we'll leave it for a bit and then be a bit firmer if it doesn't blow over on its own.