24 mths sleeping - is this the correct thing to do or has anyone else got any better ideas?

[DaddyCool]

DS is 24 mths. he used to sleep through the night but wake up very early. we tried to rectify this by trying controlled crying and this completely ruined everything and he hasn't been the same since.

our routine is as follows... I put him to bed about 7:30, I stand by the bed until he goes asleep for anything between 15 and 45 minutes (if i leave, he cries and won't go to sleep). He used to go to sleep on his own before the whole CC nightmare.

anyway, he usually wakes in the middle of the night and won't go back to sleep unless i go in with him. this was a pain at first but has just become habit and part of our nightly routine. I'm 'nighttime dad' and dw's 'daytime mum'.

The problem is, i've now got to start travelling with work. ds will only settle with me (because that's what he's used to) and dw just can't sleep in the same bed as him. she has sleep problems as it is let alone a squirming ds sleeping horizontally across the bed! (i can sleep on a bed of nails )

i must sort this out before my next trip so i'm thinking of...

when he wakes, just going into the room and standing there for as long as it takes before he goes back to sleep and just repeating this over and over again until morning. i'm hoping this will just get better and better until he sleeps through the night. sound good?

i've heard of dr. sears. i think we touched on some stuff from him back when we were having really bad problems with the CC.

I ended up buying the 'no cry sleep solution' book by this american women who has helmet hair, really big white teeth and a super-perfect family (as you do). Her book was quite good but quite long winded and we didn't managed to get through the whole thing but dw picked up the main points.

last night ds woke once at 1am. it took me only 5 minutes to settle him. he then woke up at 5am though but he does this all the time.

he wouldn't re-settle at 5am but i just stood/sat by his bed and every time he lifted his head to look at me, i told him to go back to sleep (in a gentle way of course!). i want him to be clear that anything before 6am isn't on.

i think i'm making some headway with it.

oh dinosaur, that sounds identical situation to us!

i've decided to be a hero and take over the night time thing. last time i went to the US, dw got about 2 hours per night and i felt awful. i'm going to bust my butt to sort this out once and for all.

just an update to everyone that followed this thread.

This is working brilliantly. ds takes much less time to settle in the evening now. he also wakes up only once during the night but for only 2 or 3 minutes while i tell him "it's ok, go back to sleep big guy". he also sleeps later, until about 6:30 on a consistant basis where as previous it was 5:30 to 6:00.

the waking in the night gets less and less and he's does actually sleep through on occasion. the whole thing seems to be getting better and i reckon he'll have wakeless nights pretty soon.

... i'm so awake! after two long years of drinking a full cafetiere of coffee in the mornings at work and feeling like death warmed over.

Hi DaddyC, we've just been through this with our ds 24mo. After moving into a big bed in April it all changed from the blissful put downs to 'get out of bed at every opportunity' and night wakings. I think all 2-3yo's go through this change at some point. From being good sleepers (or not) they can become very anxious at night and bad sleep patterns can easily form. We did a similar thing to you to regain trust, however, after a week of sitting next to the bed waiting for ds to drop off we then would sit next to the bed for 5mins, then announce quietly that we (whoever was doing the routine that night) were going to stand by the door, lots of reassurance needed to keep them in the bed, then waited for them to practically fall asleep. Then after a week of this we sat in the chair, stood by the door, then opened the door and stood half in half out so ds could see that you were still there. Now a few weeks later, it's the same process but we're now standing outside of the door and if ds calls out we say gently 'mummy's just here' and he's now completely satisfied with that. He drops off to sleep by himself without us being in the room. The night wakings have also stopped (maybe 1 in 5 nights now) and I don't think it's just coincidental. It has taken about two months to get to this stage and it's important not to rush each step of creeping out. We give about 3-4mins for each one. Cos it's the same pattern every night he knows what to expect and trusts us. We've now put a chair on the landing and sit there for 5 mins after leaving the room just to make sure there are no calls and can finally creep down the stairs.

Sorry for the long post, hope this helps you complete the final steps!