Hello!
My son was a perfect sleeper and would sleep through the night since he was 7 months old. We went through a brief controlled crying sleep training when he was 13/14 months after we went away for a 3-week trip. He wouldn't sleep at night and at first I thought it was jet lag, but it went on for about 2 weeks. Took him to the doctor to make sure that everything was fine. And he was. The sleep training didn't take very long, he was crying (not hysterical) for about 30 mins before he would fall asleep and from time to time he would wake up in the middle of the night. But after that 3 days of sleep training, he went back to a perfect sleeper. I would go through his nighttime routine and kissed him goodnight and walked out. He fell asleep independently and slept pretty soundly (I checked on him frequently throughout the night on his monitor because I missed him...). He fell asleep around 8pm and woke up around 7am everyday.
All that changed when he was 25 month old. He got a sister when he was 18 month and we tried every way possible to keep his routine the same and gave as much attention as we could to him. He seemed ok for a while. We transitioned him to a twin bed when he was 22 months. He loved it and everything remained. Suddenly, when he was about 25 month old, he realized that he could climbed out the bed. One night, I put him down on his bed and walked out and 3 minutes later, he came out. I put him back to his bed and he came out again. The process took about 20 minutes before I used the super nanny method. I avoided eye contact and had no interaction and just put him back in bed the moment he came out. I waited outside his room. I got tired, so mu husband took over and it went on for about 2 hours. And he was crying hysterically. Finally, that night my husband just sat in his room until he fell asleep and he left. The next night, same thing happened. Tried super nanny method again... and it took another 1.5hr. My son was crying hysterically during the process. I read that this method could take days before it started working. But it was just too exhausting for everyone. In order to keep my son quiet so he wouldn't wake the baby up, my husband sat in his room again until he fell asleep and he left. But that second night, my son, woke up in the middle of the night and came out of his room crying hysterically. My husband brought him back to bed and sat in his room till he fell asleep then he left. Unfortunately, my son kept waking up every hour and crying is no one was in his room.
Fast forward to today. It has been going on for almost 3 months and it's driving us crazy!!! My husband slept in his room for the past 2-3 months in order to minimize waking up everyone. Even that doesn't work. My son still wakes up several times in the middle of the night and sometimes he cries, sometimes he's just awake.
His bedtime was around 730pm and he would wake up at 5am. About 3 weeks ago, I read somewhere on the forum about pushing his naptime and bedtime later. And that works! He goes to bed around 8-815pm and wakes up around 645-7am.
I don't know what else to do in order to fix his sleeping issue. We installed a toddler door lock but we are not brave enough to use it. Should we? Is it cruel to just lock him in his room and let him figure things out? Obviously we will watch him closely through the monitor. I can't just install a baby gate because he screams so loud and it will wake his sister up. Has anyone gone through this and successfully fix the problem?
His current schedule:
7am - WU
2pm - Nap
330pm - WU
8pm - BT
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH for your help!!!
