The Big Sleep Issue

Not sure what is going on with Evan's sleep routine lately. All I know is the great little sleeper we had has disappeared.

Where he once was happy to play in his cot and chat to himself, until he fell asleep is gone. Now he insists one of us is with him in the room until he falls asleep. First he wants to lie down with us no the spare bed in his room, he spends about 10min playing with my hair, face, teeth and just fidgeting until it gets too much and I put him in his cot. He then spends almost an hour squirming about, asking for his bedtime buddies or wraps before he drifts off from exhaustion.

We've tried to do the controlled comforting thing and going in and out of his room at regular intervals, the patting and the shhh shhhing. Nothing works. Unless we stay in the room he gets hysterical and starts hyperventilating or vomiting.

DH and I are exhausted, as not only is going off to sleep a problem, but now he is also waking a couple of times a night and looks to find one of us on the spare bed, if someone isn't there he just goes nuts and climbs out of his cot looking for us. Trying to put him back to sleep can take hours and doesn't make for a happy mummydaddy, especially as we both need to go to work in the morning.

We just don't know what to do, so we are going with it and hoping that he will eventually feel secure enough to be able to go to sleep alone or wake up alone. DH and I are taking turns sleeping in his room each night. Maybe that's not the right thing to do, but at least we are all getting some sleep this way.

This parenting thing sure is hard.