Help Please - DD stopped self settling

[MrsAlwaysRight]

DD 17 months has always been great at getting herself off to sleep until approx 3-4 weeks ago when she was ill. Since then we had approx 2 weeks of not settling until 10pm and several nights of resorting to driving her round in car to get her off to sleep.

Now we have solved one problem but created another. She will now lay down in cot whereas before she was repeatedly standing up and crying. But now will only go to sleep with one of us in the room with her. It can take upto an hour for her to fall asleep and although this is an improvement on several weeks ago we are worried she has forgotten how to self settle and don't want her to have to rely on us being there to fall asleep.

If we lay her down in cot and leave the room as we used to she is standing before we even leave the room and crying. She is teething at the moment which I'm sure isn't helping.

She seems to be really struggling to switch off and will lay there chatting non stop and wiggling. Not sure if this is relevant but she is coming on leaps and bounds with her speech at the moment and is getting close to walking on her own.

We are desperate for suggestions to help her get back into the routine of falling asleep by herself and to get our evenings back!

Thanks in advance

She is learning lots of new things and the moment and is probably finding it hard to switch off. Do you have any sort of bedtime routine? Cuddle with mummy or daddy and milk then a story something like that?

IMO the way to go about this is gradual withdrawal. Gradually you move closer and closer to the door until eventually you can stand outside it.

any mothers with older children sleep problems? My 11 year old is often still awake at 10pm, then grumpy as hell when I get him up (6:40)for school. He isn't fretting as far as we can tell, still has a bedtime story and no TV/screens in his room.

Does he read or listen to music before bed? Does he do his homework in his room? These are 3 things that when I was younger used to stop me from getting to sleep.

I remember it being very uncool to go to bed before 10pm at that age so it could just be that.

He does read - I send him to bed at about 9pm, maybe its just too early! He spurns cool (just as well really)

I have had problems with sleep since I was a child. I will dig out the post I put on here a while back with the advice he gave me.

Sorry can't find it maybe it was in chat. The doctor's main advice was not to eat, read, work, listen to music, watch tv or use the computer in my bedroom. He said to remove the tv, computer and cd player from the bedroom cos they are sleep distractions. He said there was an exception to the cd player if I used it to listen to cd's with rainfall, waves and nature sounds etc as these can be very relaxing and help induce sleep. He also suggested audio books before bed rather than reading actual books.

The routine we have is story and milk downstairs, take DD upstairs and change nappy, put PJ's on and brush teeth. Into nursery sit on chair together and read another story or two. Then I put on her light show and watch that for a few minutes together then I lay her in cot with light show still on.
Then spend however long (50 mins) trying to settle her
I think nappy addict you are right about the gradual withdrawal approach. Will give it a go [hopeful emotion]!

Should read 50 minutes tonight!

I wonder if the light show might be too stimulating for her. Something like that would definitely wake DS right back up again. DS listens to a CD of rainfall, waves, nature sounds etc before bed which is really calming.

I think you could be right. We only bought it recently to try and encourage her to lay down! I took it down today and although she was a bit confused as to where it was she didn't seem massively bothered that it wasn't there.
She went to sleep much quicker although that may also have something to do with no naps in daytime today!
Fingers crossed it will continue