DS won't sleep without me in his room please help!!

Hi all, just wondering if any of you can help??
my ds is 13 months old and for the past month he has not been sleeping all night and am finding that i am having to pat his bumb or be in his room for over 45 mins and then finally get him to sleep.. with me only in there 5 mins later doing the same thing... he has been spoilt and has been put to sleep sometimes in our arms and sometimes i have been so tired that i have brought him in our bed cause i have been in his room 5 or 6 times during the night in 1 hour...

can anyone please shed some light and help me... it is driving me crazy and very tiring as i am pregnant with my second child...

thankyou so much xxx

Hi Rosa,

I am going through something similar with my 2y.o. at present but that is a whole different story as he is in his big boys bed and keeps on getting out as soon as I leave the room!!

I assume your son is still in a cot so that makes it a little easier to deal with. Our DS went through something similar at the same age and I ended up resorting to controlled crying, which I know a lot of people don't agree with, but it worked for us after only a couple of nights. From what I can remember... I went in and comforted DS just quickly to make sure he wasn't unwell or whatever, but did this without turning on bright lights, touching him and with minimal conversation. Then I walked out and left him for a minute or so (or longer if his crying was only on/off or a little whimper) and then would go in and just tell him it was alright and then leave again. I continued doing this and gradually increased the length of time I left him for until he would self settle. I seem to remember reading somewhere that if you listen to their crying and it is a stop/start type of cry with the stopping part over 5 secs in length, then you should start the 'leaving them' time again as this is a good sign that they are starting to settle!!!

Another trick someone told me was to make 'shooshing' sounds rather than patting his bottom, and this really seemed to help, and you can do it from outside their door where they can't see you!! We also went through a stage where we would leave a night light on for 1/2 hr or so - we had one of those coloured light eggs that changed colours constantly, which DS would watch and then self settle.

I hope this helps - I just realised you posted your thread a couple of weeks ago so you may have already found a solution.

Time for me to go post a thread regarding our 2 y.o's sleeping issues!!

Lou.