how to stop an 18mo who wants to sleep in my bed...

[ratbunny]

he has always been great to get settled - put him down in his cot at 7 and he will sleep through thil 7. But recently he has started waking in the night, and I solved it by bringing him in my bed (and getting no sleep myself, cos he is AWFUL to sleep with).
But now he is getting harder to put down in his cot, and is waking more often. I am SURE its just because he wants to sleep with me.
I have tried cc, and he usually gets it within about 20 mins. But the last couple of nights he persisted, and I couldnt bring myself to go longer than about 20 minutes doing it.
So any solutions?

last night, he wouldnt let me out of the room. He kept dozing off, but as soon as I opened the door, woke up screaming.
He appears to think he will sleep with me, as I asked him where he was sleeping and he said mama bed. .
Anyway, after HOURS trying to settle him (with me in his room), I put a duvet on the floor and he snuggled up with me. An hour later, he woke me up playing!!!! Eventually I got him to sleep by each time he stood up, I lay him down.
But I still couldnt leave the room!

PLEASE can anyone help.

xh and I split up 2 1/2 months ago - could this be related? He has been a great sleeper for a year now, eve through the separation, so it seems odd if its upsetting him NOW.

I cant continue to co-sleep, as I get no sleep, and e wont let me leave the room anyway (I dont want to go to bed at 7 myself!).

And I dont want to do cc for very long - in the past he has taken less than 20 mins to go down using cc, but now he wont. And I cant let him get upset for longer than that!!

PLEASE can someone help?????

Ratbunny - didnt want to read this and not reply. I really feel for you. His blip in sleeping pattern could be due to your breakup (could take a while to dawn on kids) or it could be due to developments in behaviour - 18 months is a classic time for separation anxiety to begin. The co-sleeping doesnt seem to work for you so you need to get him settled to go to sleep in his cot - first with you sitting by the cot, then you moving away to near the door, then you moving away to outside the door, until he gets used to sleeping in his cot again. if he wakes up in the night, go in and shush pat him down but dont take him into your bed - if he's really crying hard, calm him down and then put him in his cot and stay with him for 5 minutes shush patting then gradually move away. DS went through a phase like that at about 17months and it took a week of shush patting to get him back to the stage where he could start resettling himself.