21 month old and sleep regression. ..at my wits end

[Heres Hoping]

My normally good sleeper has turned into a demon. All of a sudden this week shes refusing to sleep or take naps and goes buck daft if u bring her to bed. Theres been no change to her routine so this is very out of the blue. Shes crying and screaming that much that she sounds like a wild animal and we've noticed shes bit her hand all out of temper. Shes perfectly comfortable and is by now exhausted yet wont give in to sleep, it feels like a battle of wills with a very deviant toddler whos point blank refusing to sleep.

Ive read about sleep regression at this stage but I only seem to read acknowledgment and sympathy for it, no actual suggestions what to do for best. Ive tried everything but scared to pander too much to her and stray from our routine in case I make things worse. She will only actually lie down if u stay in the room and hold her hand which is ridiculous, we cant start doing that. Im 8 months pregnant, exhausted and feeling like a failure. Im so worried how I'll cope with this when theres also a newborn to look after. Really feeling at my wits end, would appreciate any suggestions or recommendations plz?? x

 

[jeanettegm]

We are going through something similar. Our little boy has hit this sleep regression over the last 6 weeks. Like you he wants us to sit/lie in his room and then the screaming and head butting the end of the cot stops. We have tried a few things like controlled crying but this makes him worse and then wakes up our 4 month old. He will deliberately keep himself awake tubbing his eyes and coughs until he's sick.The one thing that does work is that we take him round the house in the dark to show him it's bedtime and repeat the phrase ' it's night night time' . We have even shown him that cbeebies has gone night nights too. This calms him down enough to get him back upstairs. He then usually needs a drink of water while I read him his favourite book. He then goes back to bed and sleeps through. The first few times it took us ages to resettle him last night was an hour. Still not ideal as he was sleeping through and we are sleep deprived from our 4 month old.

 

[Baby2sky]

I went through this at around the same time too. My lo was the same and just wanted someone there with her in the room or holding her hand. We just followed her lead. Not ideal but it was easier to just stay there comforting her than her getting so worked up. It lasted maybe 6 weeks ish all in all but now she's back to self settling herself.

 

[Nutsyputs]

We went through the same around Christmas and I would love to give you some words of wisdom but in the end my son just started sleeping again. We stuck with his routine but would sit with him until he fell to sleep.

 

[Goat]

My toddler did this too at 21 months and it unfortunately coincided with the arrival of her new sister. She also started climbing out of the cot. We swapped the cot for a single bed and put a gate at her door. After that she didn't cry but chatted for ages, looked at her books, rattled the gate for a bit then went to bed and fell asleep. If she did cry hubby would go and lie in bed with her then sneak out when she was asleep. For us it lasted 2 weeks and after that she went through a blissful period of sleeping 7pm-8am!
I do feel for you, we had some seriously depressing nights!xx

 

[TTT]

I know a lot of ppl would disagree with me but I would let her sleep in my bed withme. Let her have a few more weeks as the only cchild then I would think that when the new baby comes along and is waking up every two hours she'll be happy to move back into her own room, by which time this phase may gave even passed. Id tempt her with a new bed spread and new nightlight.