22 month old used to sleep perfectly.....now refuses to go to bed or sleep....HELP!!!!

[Treesyw]

Hi - Into our 3rd week of no sleep hell now and in desperate need of some advice. 22mo used to sleep so perfectly, you could put her down awake and she would sleep until 7am everyday.
Suddenly she is refusing to go to bed and when we eventually do put her down she is waking in the night crying her eyes out and won't go back in her bed.
Have tried controlled crying to see if its just habit but after 2 hours of screaming she was getting worse and worse.
Getting so bad now that she won't go to bed at all in the evening.
We are fairly certain that it relates to new found realisation of fears as in the day she is very jumpy at noises and is cautious about going anywhere dark when we're out.
Just don't know what to do, have tried everything to make her more happy to be in bed.
She is still in cot, should we try a bed?
Any advice/help pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease

yes try moving to a big girls bed, we had exactly the same problem with dd at around 20 months so we changed her cot into cot bed and she did improve greatly . I think they just realise that they can try and manipulate you and do things there own way and i can remember in the end i left her to cry and have a tantrum in her room and she eventually fell asleep on the floor behind her door (we had a stair gate on her bedroom as it wont fit the stairs)but it did break the cycle and she relised that i was not giving in and lying with her anymore, i used to only come downstairs at 10pm after stroking her to sleep, so be careful not to get into bad habits like i did!!
It was the same time that she became scared of dark, monsters, shadows etc so we let her have a lamp on in her room which she still has, not sure if i should of encouraged this as much as now she has to have it on all night and wakes up if i sneak in and turn it of and she is nearly 4 and im sure its not good sleeping in such a light room, she has a dream catcher in the window to catch bad dreams.it was a difficult phase but she did grow out of it eventually, she still tries it on sometimes but im firmer than i used to be otherwise she really would have me wrapped around her finger!!
good luck

Left her crying last night as she refused to go to bed quietly.....after 75 mins of screaming she went off to sleep and slept all night! Not looking forward to tonight though....hopefully not same again

Treesyy - just wondered how you are getting on? I have exactly same problem now - 2 hour screaming sessions - I go in and try CC and lie him down - he's just standing up every time I go in - last night it took 2.5 hours to get him to sleep then up again at 3am til 4.10am when I relented and brought him in with me. He is very early riser anyway - around 4.30am at the moment and I just can't face weeks of disrupted nights too. Lack of sleep if just about the worst thing - arguing like mad with DH. He wants me to just leave him to scream but I find it so hard.

I'm so relieved to find this thread. My 23 month old DD used to have a great bedtime and sleep routine (despite waking at 5.30am) but since I was rushed to hospital a few weeks back and spent a few days in, she has become an absolute nightmare. She would scream and scream in her cot, thrashing her head against the cot so badly, that her head was covered in bruises and she gave herself a black eye.

My sister suggested moving her to a "big girl's bed" which after having a screamathon for hours the first couple of nights, ended up with her sleeping all the way through until about 7am.

Unfortunately things have taken a turn for the worse, with her not only having the screamathon at the beginning, but now screams waking up repeatedly in the night and running to our room. Our neighbour's room is right next door so while I don't mind her screaming earlier in the night, I worry about her screaming in the wee hours of the morning.

I'm 30 weeks pregnant and not well at the moment so am exhausted. DH has started sleeping on a makeshift bed in DD's room just so we can both get some sleep but I know that this is going to cause us problems later too. I'm desperate - please help someone, I need some wise advice!

Wizzywoo - I am struggling and I am not 30 weeks pregnant - poor you. I am still doing no better than I was a week ago - thinking of moving DS to a bed but so worried that it will make it worse. I don't know how he is still going - perfectly happy all day except lull at lunchtime when I give him a nap - someone else suggested cutting that out but bit worried how I would get to the end of the day without being massively overtired. My ds is still in a grobag - is yours? wondering whether to move to a duvet but he stands up most of the night just worried when he does go back to sleep he will be cold. I just don't know what has gone wrong - like yours always an early riser but this settling at bed time and waking up all night is a nightmare.

Wish I could advise you but clearly what I am doing is not working either.

another thing to think about is the nap - is it time to cut out or drop?? that has helped with my ds who was very similar

was going to say drop the daytime nap, but I see someone has beaten me to it