DS nearly 2 - still going in to him x times per night and he never goes to sleep without a fight. What do we do?!

[bintofbohemia]

He'll be 2 in August. We co-slept from birth until about 9 months when I hit the end of my tether due to severe sleep deprivation. (As in, he didn't, never for longer than 2 hours.)

He never ever just goes to sleep. He had a patch from about 9-12 months where he would go 7pm-6am on the whole, but then stopped. He generally has a nap at lunchtimes but I just leave him in the pushchair now as it was just too difficult to get him to sleep in his cot.

At night, we put him down, and he spends 1-2 hours sitting up and crying until you go in and put him down. He wakes and cries usually for an hour in the night at some point, and last night he was on and off for hours and in and out of our bed through desperation as we didn't want him waking up DS1.

We have a night time routine, I really don't know what we can change. We've tried leaving him for long times between going in but he will literally just go on for hours.

I don't know what to do. It's hideous being woken up every night (and still, at this stage!) and I feel like we must have done something horrible wrong to still be in this situation.

Can anyoen offer any advice please? Or nice happy stories about similar children who suddenly started sleeping brilliantly?

Hi bint!

I also had a terrible sleeper, but for the past year she has been an angel and sleeps 11/12 hours a night all thanks to a technique we used called the disappearing chair (or gradual withdrawal). Have you heard of it/tried it? It is significantly less traumatic than controlled crying, which just really upset us all!

The method started working for us in about 3 nights (3 nights of hell but SO worth it in the end) and after about 10 days we could put her in her bed and just leave the room without any drama and she would sleep through. We also have that clock, which does help to justify why she has to stay in bed until 6.50am and why we wont come in to her before then.

There are various threads on MN about how to do it but basically do your normal bedtime routine, put them in bed awake, in dark room and then sit on a chair/cushion beside their cot or bed until they fall asleep (my daughter cried for an hour the first night until she passed out and then for only 20 mins the 2nd night and so on). We didn't talk to her or have eye contact but she could see we were there and not abandoning her. Every couple of nights, move your chair slightly further away ? towards the foot of the bed, towards the door, in the doorway with the door open then eventually outside the door. You do have to grit your teeth for the first few nights (and use ear plugs!) but I am quite evangelical about the method because it did work miracles for us! You do have to be very consistent and have faith that it will work, which can be very difficult when you're sitting next to your hysterical child!

Worth a go if you haven't tried it already. I have a leaflet on the technique I would be happy to scan and email to you if you'd like.

Good luck!

My DD2 found it very difficult to settle to sleep after we moved house, she was about 2yrs. After weeks of sleepless nights, (taking hours to settle her and her coming into our room about 5 times during the night), we decided on a radical solution! We moved her bed into our room!! She felt much more secure in our room, she knew we were coming to bed in a bit and as if by magic she went to sleep without any fuss, and slept through the night. BLISS!! Most of my friends though I was a looney, but I didnt care. We were all getting a good nights sleep (including DH), non of us were getting stressed and there were no tears. We did this for about 6 months,by then she was so good at going to bed that we moved her in with her big sister. They loved sharing a room and did so for about 4 years, without any problems.

I hate to jinx this by writing it - but the last two nights have been better! It seems he likes to know one of us is at least upstairs, and then he's settled...

(Although it's weird, because other nights you go into him and he won't even lie down. Oh, i dunno, but fingers crossed it stays this way!)

Thank you Sub, twinkle and quick - this thread has really helped me this last week. And if it all goes to pot again I'll be back!

Brilliant Bint, so pleased.

Long may it last!