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16mth suddenly hates cot, will sleep in buggy - HELP!

Help!  My almost 17 month old has suddenly taken a huge disliking to her cot.  We've had a few odd nights like this for a few months but now it seems to have stuck.  Previously we could get her in the cot and she'd be quiet for a short while before crying and then screaming but now the crying starts as we enter her room and the screaming when I put her in her cot.  The screaming is so bad she makes herself sick.  I've tried leaving her but it's too bad.  I've tried the going in after 5 mins, 10 mins, 10 mins but gave up after half an hour.  She stops crying/screaming the instant either myself or hubby walks into her room.  There is nothing wrong with her.  Currently we're resorting to putting her in her old big buggy (Graco Quattro) in our room where she falls asleep fairly quickly and we move her back to her cot after half an hour as she has no room to move in the buggy.  It makes no difference whether she has her usual 1.5-2 hour nap (which she does still need) or less or none.  Previously she only did this screaming at bedtime and was still ok to nap in her cot but today it started at naptime too, so I resorted to walking her round the streets in her other buggy (Maclaren).

We're at our wits end.  Have we really got to let her scream it out when it's so bad she's sick?  The neighbours must think we're murdering her or something!  We can't keep putting her in the pram - although it's more peaceful and quicker to get her to sleep so we actually get some evening to relax, she's too big for it and it's not right!

Any advice please....

Replies

  • Oh my goodness, poor you, roberjl - you're really going through it at the moment. I remember those days well - and how exhausted and hopeless you can feel.

    What cracked it for me (and we had a similar type of problem - though thankfully our child was never sick - poor you) was to introduce a 'transitional object' - something that our child could get attached to every time we put him down, and start to associate with nice peaceful sleeping. This something has to be something you can transfer to the place where you want your child to end up sleeping.

    For us, it was a little blue quilted blanket that we tucked around our child every nap time and bedtime - and it only ever came out then. After a week or two of consistently bringing out the 'blankie' every time it was sleep time, blankie had become the kind of sleep signal.

    So then we tried moving our child to the cot - bringing out 'blankie' as usual. And it did work! Our son has started to associate sleep with 'blankie', not with where he was being put - if you see what I mean.

    Hope that helps! If you give it a try, please do let us know how you get on.. 

  • edited May 1, 2019 8:21PM
    Hi did you ever find a way I got a 2 year old who been like this and I am pulling my hair out not sure what to do anymore 
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