22 month old bedtime taking 1-2 hours each night

[Sleepymama20]

Can someone help me before I go insane? Our DD has never been a good sleeper - constant wake ups, split nights, 4am drives to get her to sleep. She's always been impossible to get to sleep. We had finally moved away from rocking to sleep but not have to lie next to her while she falls asleep. This is because she insists on holding hands to fall asleep and will scream bloody murder if she is left alone.

Now we're at a stage where she's bouncing around in bed rather than laying down and closing her eyes. She is obviously tired but will not go to sleep. Lately we have been enduring 10pm bedtimes and we've reached a point of exhaustion

My husband insists on putting her to sleep which involves him falling asleep next to her and not doing anything to help her sleep. No shushing parting singing, literally just straight to sleep. She then uses this opportunity to start bouncing around the bed and gets more lively til I have to come in,and spend another hour putting her to sleep. I actually can't take this anymore, I'm working as well and my performance is getting worse because my evening is spent battling with her. I don't get a break. I get so anxious about the evenings now and just want to get in the car and drive far far away. This evening we started bedtime at 7pm. She's still awake now just kicking her legs about. She's so close to falling asleep but can't shut off.

What do I do? Leave her in her room to cry it out?

Oh were going through the exact same with our almost 2yo DS. It's utterly exhausting. Like, I can deal with occasional wake ups but not having an evening to relax and process my thoughts is seriously wearing me down.

Really hope it's just 2 year sleep regression.

We did however start to leave him to cry for 5 minutes at a time, which gradually changed to 5 minutes of murmuring, then 10 minutes of babbling. Basically we're gradually extending the time before going back but at the end of it he still has to fall asleep in my arms. But at least I'm able to get a few jobs done in between going back.

Ooh same is happening to me!
(I write this with my fingers crossed that my 22 month old is asleep)
Currently taking 1-1.5 hours falling asleep. I'm still breastfeeding too.

I have nothing magical to say.. just that I am in the same boat.

I have considered cutting his nap recently but I am worried he will get over tired. I always make sure he is awake by 2:30 anyway for the school run.

Very annoying being stuck upstairs. I just lie down next to him in the end and wait for him to drop off.

My LO actually loves his tonies box. We pop him in his cot whilst I'm wrestling my other two children after the bath. He really relaxes with it and lies down listening to it. Could something like this work to him wind your LO down before bed?

Does she still nap?

She does and was reliably doing 12-2pm until this week (lots of fighting naptime and then having a danger nap). Even capping the nap or getting her to fall asleep earlier didn't make a difference - there seems to be a real reluctance to fall asleep at bedtime. She falls asleep quite easily when it is her naptime in contrast. I wonder if separation anxiety is playing a part of this - she can't fall asleep unless we're holding hands or touching in sone way. I wonder if getting her to sleep in her own room might make a difference but my husband wants to take the easy road and have her in bed with us.

I'm so desperate for a break I'm having to take annual leave while she's on nursery and husband is at work to have some me time!

My daughter was like this at 2.5 and we contacted a gentle sleep consultant (I couldn't do CIO). I was in the same boat, taking hours to get to sleep with my hand on her and I couldn't leave the room - and working full time.

We had results really quickly and the following worked for us:

She was napping too long (at nursery) - we capped it to 1 hour and ending by 1.30. We always made sure she had this nap when at home, we went for a drive at this time which was always a sure way to get her to sleep. Wake window was 6 hours so 7.30 bedtime.

Sorted out the bedtime routine - did the same thing every night. No screen time, some boisterous play before downtime.

Got out of the room by first moving away from the bed for a few seconds and coming back, then gradually over a few weeks moving to the other side of the room, going out of the room but always coming back when I said I would. We did this so gradually she didn't get upset.

The above was tailored for us though, if you have the means I would highly recommend contacting someone for help as the results for us were very quick and actually pretty easy.

Obviously my daughter was slightly older so yours may need more than a 1 hour nap. This was also in her own room at the time but we did cosleep in there before we improved things.

Separation anxiety was exactly the thing for us. The pop outs reassured we would come back and once she was happy with that she fell asleep on her own and then didn't expect me to be there in the night either.

But maybe start with little steps and get her falling asleep in your room more easily first before changing too much.