Settling toddlers to sleep....

Ok you would think that after being a member on these forums for 2.5 years I would have read everything there is to know about settling babies... but I'm wondering if people have different ideas or tips for toddlers??

Aidyn is going through such a bad patch atm... and its been going on for well over 2 months.

He basically wakes up 3-4 times a night, and each time the only way to settle him was to bring him to our bed, and then sometimes I would tranfser him back to his cot once he was asleep (if I hadnt alredy fallen asleep myself!).
At first he was having bad nights maybe only 4 nights a week, but for the past few weeks it has been EVERY night.
He is also fighting naptime too... I find if he wakes up later than 7am, then he is less likely to go down for a nap... however come 6pm and he will be having the biggest tantruming fit I've ever seen, just because he's so tired!
On normal nights when he has had a nap during the day, he plays silly buggers all night, and its quite common for him to still be awake at 9.30pm...

We moved him to a big boy bed on the weekend, as I thought there was no time like the present - no point in sorting out his current sleeping issues, only to disrupt him again when we introduce him to a bed!
I have put his cot mattress next to the bed (in case he rolls out), but basically for the 3 nights he's been in there, it had taken over 1.5hours to get him to sleep... This requires me to lie on the mattress next to him and not talk to him for over an hour (otherwise it distracts him) until he will drift off.
If I dont lie down next to him whilst he's trying to sleep, he just calls out Mummy Mummy! and gets upset, and this just delays the amount of time it takes him to go to sleep.
He is still waking up at least 3 times a night, and last night I had to go in there 3 times and lie down on the floor next to him, but this time I had put my hand up to pat him, or he would dangle his legs down because he wanted contact with me it seems? And then at 4am I gave up and just let him sleep in our bed...

I'd love to hear others advice and suggestions on how I could settle him to sleep... but I am not willing to let him cry it out... I have never been able to do that, and at this age it would make him hysterical, and I cant do that to him.

ETA - do you think this could perhaps be coinciding with his development? Atm and for the last month he has finally began talking heaps more, and is picking up a few new words every day.

Sorry I can't give you any pearls of wisdom Ambah! Jacob goes to sleep fine during the day, but not at night.....

We have to spend sometimes an hour with Jacob each night to get him to sleep, which involves sitting next to his bed, lying on the floor....wherever we can get comfie really. Jacob will holler out and cry if we leave him (same as Aidyn). Recently we have had him in our beds several nights a week because he wakes during the night and will NOT go back to sleep in his own bed and we are simply too tired to try and persist with it in his bed (we figure we can still get some sleep if we put him in our bed).

Sometimes we have wondered if he has been having bad dreams as when he wakes up, it's a different kind of cry and he's wide awake....

The other thing it could be is that maybe he is ready to drop the nap altogether and needs to go down to bed quite early in the evening? Bring dinner time forward perhaps?!

Not sure.....I think I'd be rich if I had a solution LOL!

Transitioning to the bed is no doubt part of it too I guess.....

oh I hear you (as right now Matilda is crying in her room "daddy daddy daddy"...) and we just spent the last hour in there with her.

When Matilda had heaps of waking issues in the night & taking 2 hours to go to sleep in July/August the Triple P consultant had us sit on a chair next to her bed for 3 nights until she fell asleep. He said to put a night light on and read... don't contact her or let yourself be contacted. Then move a metre closer to the door for 3-5 nights and then closer until you are standing outside the door where she would be able to see our shoulder. And then let her know you are there and pop your hand in every 5 minutes.

At that time she was refusing to sleep in her bed, so it was a big feat to get outside her room. She's regressed big time since Jovie has been sleeping in our room, so we have to either get Jovie out earlier, or we've put a mattress next to our bed & she is allowed to come in during the night and sleep in our room. Its just easier than the battle of gettin up to her 4-5 times at night & having to resettle her. We decided we would get her to sleep in her room & what happened from there didn't matter, sleep is most important.

*phew* thanks girls... its good to hear that its not so uncommon to be spending half of the night in there settling him. I keep thinking, he's nearly 3, yet he was sleeping through much better when he was 1!!
Jackson has gone to bed early tonight, so I told him to sleep on the mattress next to Aidyns bed, which hopefully will be enough for Aidyn to go to sleep with him there. I will make him move to our bed once Aidyn is asleep ;)
Am also going test something out by leaving the aircon on in his room the whole night tonight... just a theory I have... he always seems to wake up an hour or so after it is turned off, and it does get really stuffy in there, so maybe the heat has been making him uncomfortable and waking him? Btw, I dont have it on cold, its actually on 27degrees, but still cools down the air a bit. (yet if we the aircon in our own bedroom on 27degress it would be warming it up! - and they are the same model, go firgure!?)

*i feel so much better knowing its not just jaykob doing this!*

Once hes asleep, hes asleep and generally sleeps through, but this whole "getting to sleep part" must have been skipped on the induction to parenting coz i dont remember learning any of this!

Jaykob generally comes into our bed, or needs to be comforted to sleep in his room.

Im not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel :( lol but im up for some new ideas if anyone has any...

Good Luck to everyone sharing this issue, its a tough one!!! :)

Xo

I keep telling myself one day he will sleep all by himself without a peep or the need for settling! But in the meantime, it can be seriously hard!!!

How did you go last night Ambah?

The night before last he woke up 3 times, and I had to go in 3 times and stay for a while - but he stayed in his bed until morning, which was a start!

Yesterday naptime I had my sister over and felt awful about needing to ignore her for an hour to get him to sleep, but I trialled it first with leaving the room, and he got up a couple of times, but within half an hour after that he put himself to sleep! I was VERY impressed!

Lastnight it took 2 hours to get him asleep, and he would not let us leave the room - he would hop out of bed everytime we left.
He woke up twice during the night...the second time I went in and lay on the mattress and I fell asleep myself there and didnt wake till the sun rose... so he spent the whole night in his bed, but now I have a sore back LOL!