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@autumnmama79 this sounds just like my son at the same age. I had several posts begging for help because I was about to quit my job due to sleep deprivation.

The bottom line, what we ended up doing (he was 17-18 months at the time) was Ferber sleep training, extremely consistently. I was really anti-CIO but we had to. I felt unsafe driving. We set up a super regimented bedtime routine (same thing every night), very early. We did our routine, I nursed him but instead of rocking/nursing him to sleep, we put him in his crib. Of course he became hysterical. We gave hugs, kisses, said I love you, said I will be back to check on you in 3 minutes. We set a time for 3 mins and went to check on him every 3 mins. We would only stay in the room like 10 seconds during the checks, we had a set phrase to say, like "I love you, it's time to sleep" or whatever. We would increase the intervals slowly to 5 min, etc. but I was never comfortable going really long intervals.

The first night I think he cried off and on for about 90 minutes. I cried my eyes out. I made my husband do the checks, I couldn't handle it. Then he would cry may be 5 minutes for the next 2 weeks, and then he stopped crying at bedtime. And he has STTN ever since. It was a game changer for us. He is happier with more sleep and so are we.

If he ever cries now (barring like illness or whatever), we do Ferber checks again.

@autumnmama79 yes, same checks for MOTN wakings. We had to nurse/rock our son to sleep, he would sleep for a few hours then be up for 4-5 hours in the middle of the night, every night. It was AWFUL. Like the darkest time of my life. LOL. I always said it was a phase, or maybe he's getting teeth, or whatever, and I had to come to terms with the fact he was just a crappy sleeper with bad sleep habits.

We had to be so, so, so consistent with it. The checks had to be extremely brief. Sometimes it seemed like he got worse after the checks, but I did not feel comfortable doing extinction CIO w/no checks. I would have your husband do it in the MOTN if your LO wants to nurse (mine did).

Yes, they will be hysterical - I think they all are. It is terrible. I cried so much thinking I was such a bad mother doing this to my child, etc. But I promise so worth it after!

Ditto everyone else. I would successfully night wean my son, usually through CIO, and then something would derail. He is now 21 months and fully weaned and sleeping better. I will tell you that I expect to continue to have derailment, my boy is just not a good sleeper and he loves snuggles.

Staying strong and just consistently letting him cry worked for us. Does your DS nurse to sleep at the start of the night? That made a huge difference for us dropping that.

This may sound strange but DS is 22months and just started consistantly sleeping through the night about 2 weeks ago from 8:30ish to 7:30ish. Before that (about 6 months) he just woke up once sporadically in the middle of the night. I swear the only thing waking him up was his diaper. I noticed that on the nights that he woke up he had a really full diaper, so I started cutting back on his liquid intake after 5pm. Now when he wakes up in the morning it's still not a totally full diaper. I truly think DS is just sensetive to his diaper being full. Just some food for thought

@autumnmama79 my son (before sleep training) would also STTN occasionally, like once every week or two, and I was like "he'll do it! We just need to give him time!". And maybe he would have... but him being up all night, it just didn't happen.

I hope the trend continues for you!

@Autumnmama79: we think that has to do with him room sharing with his sister! He was never alone. But there were some nights he wanted to be held over and over. But yes it made the wake ups way more tolerable.