Tired, stressed and pregnant - so perhaps this will read more emotively than it should but I’m starting to wonder if my 23 month old will ever be happy in her cot again!
She used to be a great sleeper. Going down at 7pm, happy to chat to herself until she fell asleep and then awake at 7pm in a great mood.
She recently had about a month of being ill, lots of viruses including a bad cough that kept her awake a lot. She was coughing so much she was vomiting sometimes so naturally we were running to her every time she woke. We had many nights of max 2 hours sleep and myself and my partner are absolutely shattered (even though it has improved a lot since then).
She is thankfully in much better health now and has gone from waking every hour and screaming for two hours straight to it being a lot better. However, she now absolutely HATES going to bed, and when she does wake up (which is often) she’s very hard to settle.
I know we’re dealing with a few issues here; 2 year regression, terrible twos, separation anxiety (since being ill she won’t even let me go to the other side of the kitchen without following me and crying), and the new sleep associations we gave her when she was ill won’t have helped either.
We’re not against sleep training. We’ve used Ferber on her a few times when she was younger and had great success with it, only having to do it for one night before it fixed any issues. We’ve tried it this time round and it’s not helping much at all except maybe she’s linking her sleep cycles a little better. I worry that if she has separation anxiety the Ferber method isn’t appropriate anyway. Also trying the chair method but she’s just so angry it seems to make her worse.
If we could put her in our bed, we would. Just to get some sleep but she’s a spirited child and just gets even more angry. It’s like she’s angry she’s awake but doesn’t know how to go back to sleep.
She used to wake at 7am, nap for 1.5 hours around 12/12.30, bed at 7pm and asleep by about 7.30pm.
Now her routine is much more fluid as it’s taking her so long to go to sleep.
example of our night last night was: Bed at 7.30, sat in her room until she fell asleep at 8.30 (full on crying and screaming), woke up at 10pm, put her back down and she slept until midnight, then she woke up every 15 mins until 1am where I sat in her room again for 45 mins and she was still crying, eventually took her out the cot for a long cuddle and put back down. Then she woke up at 3am, 4am and then 7am. So not the worst we’ve ever had but a month of no sleep is killing us and being 27 weeks pregnant isn’t helping either.
Things we’ve tried: (we already had blackout blinds, white noise & dummies)
Later bedtime
Earlier bedtime
Capping nap to 1hr
Lengthening bedtime routine
Sleep music in room
Soft toys (she’s not bothered)
Ferber method (graduated crying, 3mins, 5,mins, 8 mins)
Chair method (Staying in room until she falls asleep)
Anyone been through similar and lived to tell the tale?
Just a note to say we’re not cold, hard parents I’ve just read a lot that said you should try and keep comforting to a minimum when sleep training to try and minimise them needing it every time they wake at the end of asleep cycle.