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If I were in this situation, I would let her CIO. Reassure her when you put her down. She's definitely old enough to understand what's going on and that you're not abandoning her.

I would try a few things, probably beginning with introducing a lovey and a night light at first. Then, if that doesn't work, or isn't producing desired results, I'd look at moving the bedtime earlier, it could be that she is overtired and that is why she is struggling to fall asleep.

My son is three and he's never been the world's best sleeper, he struggles with falling asleep at home as well, even though he can do it at daycare. I understand completely!

I would try a few things mentioned above, like lovey and small nightlight. Also, do you typically do the same routine every night? We just went through a small phase if screaming hysterically at bedtime and had to rock LO to sleep (18 months). What I have been doing the last few nights that has really helped is playing a soothing lullaby on her CD player and leaving it on. The music seems to calm her and she sort of has something to focus on instead of me leaving. Also, what are her naps like during the day and what time does she wake up? She could be over/under tired but would need to learn more about your schedule to see.

Well, sleep loss is cumulative, so missing a few minutes here and there can totally add up! I also see it as MsLipGloss does, towards the end of the week, it's more pronounced.

I know, having a tough sleeper is very challenging. I wish I could just put my son in his room and have him fall asleep on his own, but it's just not how he is wired. I have come to accept this and it's made my life a little easier/less stressful. When I think about it, I am not the world's best sleeper and neither is my husband, so it's all in the family for us!

We went through this very recently. DS used to go to bed really well but after being on vacation and sleeping in the room with us, he decided to scream his head off at bedtime.

I started prepping him throughout the bedtime routine. Like when we got out of the tub, I'd start telling him what was next: "teeth, pj's, milk, then bedtime. and no crying when mommy leaves at bedtime because mommy has to go to bed in mommy's bed". we repeated this all the way through the routine, and after a couple days he'd start filling in the blanks for me and i knew he "got it".

I also used some of Mrs. Wagon's tricks that she wrote about recently: http://www.hellobee.com/2014/04/10/travel-and-the-18-month-sleep-regression/

I'd rub his back for a couple minutes (2-3 songs on his aquarium), then slowly start to back out of the room, shushing and reassuring him that I was right here. Over the course of 2 weeks, the time I spent getting out of the room slowly got shorter. I had to go away for 3 nights for work, and I think that finally did the trick! DH has a higher tolerance for crying, so the first night I was away he did the routine and just left the room, and DS cried for 5 minutes and that was it. I'm happy to say we're basically back to normal! (still doing a 2 song back rub, but I can tolerate that)

Maybe making the bedtime routine a little shorter could help? Maybe cut out the books or song. Though it seems soothing, it could be stimulating her more.

It is hard to hear them cry. Though, however you do it, everyone will be happier when she learns how to soothe herself to sleep!

i echo the advice about trying an early bedtime and being strict about the CIO. i'm so sorry, it's so hard to hear your little one cry every single night. when we did CIO, i went into my room, shut the door, put earphones in, and watched a movie. so no, going out on the front porch is not horrible.

@Weagle: I also think cutting out the books is a good idea.

@LulaBee: it is hard. I personally couldn't do CIO. She's 2.5 and I still jump if she starts crying like that. It just isn't like her, so I always know something is wrong.

If this were my child, I'd be going in to get her and walking into another dark room with her -- for us, it's always our bedroom. I can lay with her in my bed, snuggle and talk to her. When she was smaller she couldn't quite talk back, but I would say things like "it's okay, baby. Momma and papa are right here. We will never let anything happen to you! Do you know how much I love you? TO THE MOON!" (Now Chloe tells me she loves me to the sun )

It works 99% of the time. That odd 1% is when she really just wants to sleep in our bed, and it's so rare that we let her. Sometimes my husband will try to put her in her bed but it wakes her up and she scoots closer to me and hangs on for dear life. He couches it on those kind of nights.

@LulaBee: we sleep trained at 6.5 months and it was a cake walk compared to listening to my toddler cry now. Pleading and screaming for mama is sooo hard to listen to. Honestly, I don't think I could let my toddler scream for 1.5 hours straight. I don't see anything wrong with reading before bed, maybe stick to 1 or 2 books instead of 3? I would also give the music thing a try...I was surprised how well it worked! We have a soothing lullaby CD and its all instrumental/classical and very very calming, I almost fall asleep listening to it

Just a different perspective and it may or not may be useful to you but here is my experience with my 25 month toddler. I have struggled with his sleep until he was about 18 months. I read anything to do with sleep that I could get my hands on and tracked the amount of time he was awake vs. asleep down to the minute. I followed all the recommended sleep times and did early bed times and still could not understand why his sleep was so unpredictable. Around 18 months, it suddenly clicked that he just had much lower sleep needs than an average baby. I started to put him down a little later and his sleep cries stopped and he was finally sleeping past 6am!

At around 21 months his sleep needs decreased again. He was taking 2 hour naps at daycare so he just wasn't tired enough at bed time. At first I asked his daycare to limit his naps to only 1.5 hours but he seemed to not have enough energy in the evening so I moved his bed time a little later instead. As he got older, over tiredness does not seem to affect his sleep as much as not being tired enough. At around 2 years, the average toddler needs only 12 hours of sleep in total (naps + night time sleep). LO sleeps around 10 hours at night with a 2 hour nap.

My LO loves books before bed too and I read at least 3 or 4 books before bedtime and he has no problems falling asleep afterwards.

All that to say that early bed time is not always the answer, especially if your LO has low sleep needs.

@LulaBee: It was kind of the same with my LO, early bed time would work for a short while and then back to fighting bedtime, or waking up in the middle of the night crying or waking up at an ungodly hour in the morning with all the same wake times. It was driving me crazy. After some more research and experimenting, I finally figured out that he was going through cycles of under tiredness/over tiredness. He was not tired enough to go bed so early so he would fight and cry, and it would take so long for him to go to sleep, or he would wake up in the middle of the night for hours, that it made him over tired. So then early bed time would fix the over tiredness problem then the early bed time would be too early and he wasn't tired enough again and the cycle would start itself again.

I find that baby sleep is so much trial and error. I learned to stop listening to books or sleep websites and learned what the cues my LO were giving me meant. If he was giving me sleep cries or waking in the middle of the night, I knew that he wasn't tired enough and would extend his bed time or try to tire him out during the day.

Anyway, I hope this helps and that you figure it out soon. Hearing your toddler scream/cry sucks. Nowadays, I cannot let him cry for longer than 5-10 minutes because he is such a good sleeper that if he cries for longer than that I know that sleep is just not happening.

@LulaBee: oh no! I'm so sorry mama....sleep training a toddler is seriously soooo hard when they can call out for you and say stuff. as for the climbing, yikes! hmmm...might be time for a toddler bed/ or floor bed? when we were having a rough time with sleep- I was seriously considering moving her to a floor bed so at least I could lay down with her and have her fall asleep instead of having to rock/pat her bum in crib/lean over crib.

Dang, no advice, just sympathy! I don't know that I could do CIO for that long, hugs to you! I will say, early bedtime is not always the answer. My LO just doesn't seem to need as much sleep either. Gah! Sleep is so tricky! Hopefully it's just a phase.