Tips on how to stop rocking 2yo to sleep

[BHA90]

Hello,

Looking for advice/tips on how to stop rocking my 2yo to sleep.

My little boy was a terrible sleeper from birth and so a few months in I decided to cosleep which saved us both.

At around 19/20 months he was still fed to sleep and fed through the night which I wanted to stop so we replaced feeding to sleep with rocking and I night weaned him and he started sleeping through.

Now (at 2 yrs 1 month) we still rock/sing him to sleep (standing up) for his nap and bed. He’s in a floor bed and simply gets up and starts running around if we try to lie with him, and won’t even tolerate us rocking him/holding him sat on a chair.

This is now becoming untenable, he’s too big and it’s taking too long to get him down, eating up all of our evenings. To top it off I’m pregnant with our second child and have HG so physically don’t have the strength.

Does anyone have any tips on how to get him to go to sleep on his own? I don’t mind sitting with him and being there, I just can’t physically rock anymore and have no idea where to start.

After being rocked to sleep he sleeps for the first half of the night on his own and then I join him for the second half and we wake up together in the morning.

Any tips/success stories would be greatly appreciated.

Please be kind!

Not help
OP sorry following as I'm
In same boat with my 15 month old who's still in the cot in my room as it's murder in his own room. It's very tough so solidarity we'll get there one day XX

Watching with interest, I rock my 2 year old to sleep every night!

I’d have a look at
‘The toddler years’ by Gina Ford.

Every bit of advice in her books was invaluable to us.

I should also say she may assume you’ve read ‘the contented little baby’ as well I’m guessing.
So start with complete black out blinds.

Amazed no words of wisdom for you
so
see image of website
She offers personal help over the phone too.
I didn’t use that service as her books were so amazing.

I changed from rocking to patting.
I managed to get him to lie in bed by letting him pick a story. I didn't say to him lie down to go to sleep just lie down and we'll read a book, patted him whilst reading and he would drop off.

@Kandalama thank you for the suggestions. I did have the contented little baby book when he was small but it didn’t really work for us, I could never get him into the routines she suggested. I will have a look at the toddler stuff though. And we have black out blinds.

@Sunshineclouds11 did you do that for nighttime sleep first or naps? I’m worried if I try for naps it will be a disaster and he’ll end up having really late naps that will impact nighttime sleep. How long did it take?

@imgonnalooseit @bakewellbride solidarity! It’s really tough isn’t it, especially when you’re there out of necessity.

Just for night time sleep, his naps were fine as he would just crash on sofa etc.

Hit and miss for first couple of weeks, some nights would work great, others needed abit more work.