Please Tell Me - Is self settling a myth/lie????

[MumofGreatbutCrazyBoy]

So in a nutshell... I have a two year old boy and we have had constant but changing sleep problems since we was born.

Initially severe reflux/allergies - he didn't sleep day or night (from he was two weeks old he didnt nap for longer than 30 mins or sleep much longer than a couple of hours at night until when we got his reflux under control and did the dreaded sleep training prob around 9 months. )

He probably went one or two months month self settling and sleeping well . But he was a lockdown baby (born August 20) and when we came out of lockdown he was hit with one infection after another, including ending up in hospital and five and counting bouts of tonsillitus. When his sick I will always tend to him and stay with him to go to sleep if he needs me but it always knocks his ability to self settle out and he ends up being up multiple times in night.

When he had a good period of health did sleep training again, he was self settling again but up every morning at 5 or 5 30 no matter if he was in bed for 7 or 9 pm. Went on for months.

Went on holidays, change of scene seemed to disrupt him. up every hour. wonderful.
Sleep trained again once we got home, sleep improved again but maybe up in bed with me from 4 everynight.
Now hes getting his final four molars at the same time and for the last two weeks hes been up at least 1.5hrs every night and just going mad at sleep time, crying so much when I put him into the cot to go down. Hysterical. I have been giving him calpol or nurofen occassionally if teeth look really bad but not everynight as worried about it not being good for him.

Feel like Im getting nowhere with sleep, if anything just getting worse and worse, Despite downloading sleep programs paying stupid money for sleep consultants etc, obsessing over correct nap gaps and blackout blinds and white noise and nothing really seems to help. Its impacting my work and my relationship but I wonder is this just part of the gig, do I just need to accept this as life?

Also wanted to know if anyone else has been in the same place how long before your little one was a good sleeper ?

And also really interested to know - do many peoples toddlers self settle at bed or is this just a myth and have I just made things worse by constantly trying to go back to this ?

Sounds like you have had such a hard time of it. It's good that the sleep training worked, you know he can do it. It isn't a myth, I'd be waking up that often if I had bad toothache too. Can you speak to your health visitor? They will be able to reassure you that it's alright to give pain relief for bad teething.

Back molars are excruciating. Give him proper pain relief at regular intervals!

Sleep training isn't a one-and-done deal, unfortunately, you have to redo it consistently over the years as they hit various bumps in the road. Unless poorly, I have a toddler who goes to bed perfectly and sleeps 7-8 with no one in the room with her. It's not a myth.

My DD self settles every night happily, and almost always sleeps through (and she was a horrible sleeper as a baby, so it hasn’t always been like this!). The one thing that I feel I can add is that teething doesn’t go on forever. You’re worried about too much pain medication being bad for him, but as long as you give the correct dose it is absolutely fine. So if he has pain, just give him pain relief! He won’t be teething forever, so you really don’t need to worry about it being every night (as it won’t be!).

thanks to everyone for posting, thank you for listening and thank you for the advice. I have upped the pain relief and last night we only have two brief wakenings. and he was easier to get down, although still not self settling but I will wait until the teeth have definitely settled before crossing that bridge again. Thanks again