18 month sleep help

[frillseeking]

Looking for some tips/advice. DS is 18 months and has not been great with sleep for some time. He's obviously had bouts of teething and colds etc or development stages but now it feels like it's become a habit. We co slept with DD1 around this stage but she would come into our bed and settle easily whereas he will thrash around, hit me over the head, jump on me, throw his head around and just get worked up. After a particularly bad night last night, he woke up at 4 and we just couldn't settle him so we left him to cry. I checked in on him and put some books in his cot and he went off and woke up at 7.45. He's so much happier today and full of life whereas often he is worn out and looks so dark under the eyes and obviously it's not good for any of us not getting any sleep. He shouts and hollers so loudly my DD wakes up so then she's irritable and tired too so we're stuck in a bit of an endless cycle with it all. So my question is, how do we take this forward? I don't know anything about sleep training but I'm guessing as he's never self soothed this is what we need to do. It was ok leaving him for a little while this morning but I'm worried at bedtime he might go bananas for hours so any advice would be welcomed

You could try a gradual retreat method? Do his bed time routine as normal, have a cuddle till he's drowsy then put him down in the cot, stay touching him (butt patting, head stroking, whatever his thing is), then once he's got used to that you could reduce the soothing, then just sit but the cot. Then sit further away ect. Although it's easy to write but harder to implement when you have a fighty toddler on your hands.

Or you put him down, leave him to cry in and go in at regular intervals to reassure him your there but it's sleep time so you have to leave.

I'll add but we have to do the same sometimes. Sometimes there's nothing that soothes DS (16 months) and we just have to put him down, assure him he's safe ect then leave the room. He'll usually cry for a few minutes then fall asleep.

I'm not sure gradual retreat would work for him, it seems to hype him up even more. Even this morning when he heard us on the landing I could hear him jump up in the cot, whereas hed been quiet before but I feel bad just going straight to leaving him to cry so I don't really know what to do for the best. We went to our usual playgroup today and he was so much livelier whereas normally he's struggling to stay awake! So on the one hand I feel like it will benefit all of us but on the other I love him and don't want to be cruel to him!