20 month old sleep - hating cot

[SS1983]

Hello

I am seeking some advice for my 20 month old little girl. She has never been a great sleeper, and around 9 months we did do some gentle sleep training, which worked for a little while, then she started waking at 430 - 5am (which i could handle as slept through).

Since then it is got worse again. Where we are at now is that she refuses to go into her cot, just screams and holds onto the side if I put her down. Should note, this is very out of character for her as she is a very easy going toddler during the day (no real tantrums etc), so she really really doesn't want to settle inside. If she does, she will soon wake up again.

I hate seeing her scream like that so lately she ends up in our bed. She gets up a lot there too. Any tips please? She is a twin, and we both work full time, so it is exhausting. Luckily her twin is a good sleeper (for now anyway !)

Appreciate any tips or ideas please

If you’re definitely not going to do cry based sleep training then I’d probably ditch the cot, put her in a single bed with guard, lay next to her until she’s asleep then sneak away.

My LO hated his cot - never really slept in it. We took the sides off when he was around 18m and he preferred that straight away! Was easier to get him down. We put down a foam mat of sorts whilst he was getting used to it.

He still ends up with us most of the time but he can make his way to us

Thank you both

@FlounderingFruitcake I am not against sleep training, and we did it earlier and it worked really well for a while. My other twin still sleeps through

The cry / scream is a lot worse now as she seems to be much more aware and doing it on purpose if that makes sense. I would try, and we attempted again but to no success really.