Our DS is 23 months old. He’s always been an excellent sleeper - slept through the night, woke up between 7-7.30am, could just be put down in his cot at night and would babble himself to sleep without us in the room.
About 2 weeks ago, we entered what I think must be the 2 year sleep regression and were desperate for some tips!
DS is now waking earlier (although only about 6.30am which is totally fine), waking in the night once or twice (he wakes screaming and one of me or DP goes in and sleeps next to his cot on the floor. This isn’t ideal but works in the sense everyone still gets some sleep, even if it’s broken), and putting up a fight before bed (it’s this part we need help with).
Bedtime routine has stayed largely the same with the exception that we moved him from a sleeping bag to a duvet and pillow a few days ago as he was thrashing about in his sleeping bag quite a lot and accidentally wriggling out of them in the night. He has also started refusing milk at bedtime recently (his choice, not ours) and wanting to get dressed/undressed on the floor rather than on his changing table. Now, when we put him in his cot, he begs us to lie down next to his cot and, if we attempt to leave the room, will scream and cry (gets quite distressed).
Things we’ve tried:
- Lying down next to the cot - we started doing this when the regression began, assuming it would only last a day or two and we’d be lying there for 15mins tops. We were very wrong. When we lie down, we end up stuck there for between an hour - hour and half until he falls asleep.
- Setting boundaries and walking out - after it became clear we were in regression territory, we started explaining that mummy/daddy was going to put him in his cot, give him a kiss, and then leave the room (but we’d only be in our room ‘asleep’). We’d then walk out. However, he’d get so distressed - not just normal crying but really screaming and hysterical. The longest I managed to leave him was a couple of minutes but I couldn’t stand to hear him so upset so gave in and went back into his room to lie down next to his cot.
- Cuddly toy - he’s never had one in bed with him and, when we’ve offered him one to snuggle with, he actively wants it out of the cot. We’ve tried with a few different toys.
- Projector - he has a night light in his room anyway, but we tried a star projector on the ceiling. He was ambivalent.
- Moving bedtime later - he ended up being overtired during the bedtime routine which made the whole process more fractious and I still ended up lying down next to his cot (albeit, for not as long as usual, but I still only left his room at the same time as if he’d gone to bed at his usual time and had me lying down for longer).
My question is - does anybody have any tips? I’ve read so many articles/threads with differing views and can’t work out what to do for the best.
On the one hand, does he need us to set clear boundaries (meaning we walk out of the room and leave him to settle no matter how distressed he gets)? Or does he just need some extra support right now with all of the developmental changes he’s going through (meaning just lying down next to him to give him comfort is the best thing)? I don’t want to create some kind of unholy trauma because he was left crying in his room, but I equally don’t want to start habits now around bedtime/sleep which take years to break!