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I remember DD2 going through this last year and it was brutal! I don’t remember exactly how long it lasted, but suddenly it was over as quickly as it started. I’m sorry, I know how exhausting it is!

@agold: It’s all such a blur even though it wasn’t that long ago! From what I remember, she was pretty good about going to sleep, but her big issue was waking in the middle of the night and not wanting to go back to sleep. We did have her in our bed and just tried to get through it with as much sleep as possible. DH and I would take turns trying to get her to sleep - rocking, walking around, etc. We weren’t prepared for it because our older DD never went through an 18 month regression. I think it lasted about a month.

I’m sorry I don’t have any super helpful advice. I remember it being so exhausting and frustrating.

So we just came out of this at 21 months. Meaning it started at 21 months. He was 4 weeks early and all sleep regressions have a little variance on when they start kid by kid. So for us it was basically 20 months.
I don’t remember my first son’s being this bad. But they are just different personalities. First one hated cuddling and would dive from my arms to the crib. When he had his regression he’d wake up and cry and I’d rock him for like 5 mins tops and he’d go back to bed no problem. He just needed a little reassurance.
This one though. Oh man. He is a CUDDLER and very attached to both of us which is really cute most of the time but from 2:30-4:30 am it makes me want to punch a wall
So we had about 2 weeks of waking around 2;30am (average) and staying awake SCREAMING unless we held him for 1.5-2 hours. The 2nd week of this he also screamed bloody murder when we put him down for the night. Same thing, naps fine. It was just bedtime.
Well it peaked this past week when my parents came for thanksgiving. He screamed so hard and so long at bedtime one night his voice was hoarse the next day. And another night he threw up from crying so hard. This is totally unchartered territory for us.
We finally just said f*ck it, lets cio again. One night he cried for like 45 mins. Next night he cried maybe 5 mins at bedtime and 20 mins middle of the night. Third night no crying at bedtime and just some whimpers in the night for like a minute. FINALLY the last 3 nights he has slept all night no crying. After 2 weeks of being awake for 2-2.5 hours a night I was feeling the same bleak feelings of the newborn days. I don’t deal with sleep deprivation well and it was almost worse becuase at least in newborn days you feed them and put them down, awake for like 20 mins? 2:30-4:30am was making me lose my mind.

So, bottom line, we had to CIO. Nothing else was working. It wasn’t sustainable for us to take turns holding him for 2 hours in the middle of the night and if we kept doing that it would certainly create bigger more permanent problems.
We never had to cio past 5 months with my older one. It’s way worse at 21 months. He was screaming, pounding his bed, kicking the walls and yelling DADDYYYYYYYYY MOMMMYYYYYYY and it was brutal but what else could we do???? We cannot cosleep. We cannot wake up every night for 2 hours. We couldn’t do checks (they made him throw up). All that was left was cio and as much as it BLEW, it worked within 3 nights. Everyone is way happier now, him included.