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June 2022 Babies 🇨🇦

Toddler not wanting to sleep alone

Hi mamas! Our baby started sleeping through the night early on. She's been great falling and staying asleep on her own. However, as soon as she turned 21 months, she started to refuse falling asleep alone in her crib. She insists on sleeping on the double bed in her room with either my husband or myself laying next to her.

She used to fall asleep by 7 pm and the earliest we can get her to sleep now is 9 pm. She cries and screams with no end if we put her in her crib awake, so we wait for her to fall into a deep sleep and then transfer her to her crib. Some nights she then sleeps all the way through, other nights she wakes up screaming.

She has definitely been teething, has had a cold for weeks now, and we also recently came back from a week long vacation, all of which could be causing this change. But we think it's separation anxiety for sure.

Have your toddlers gone through something similar at this age? What steps did you take? How do you reassure them and ease them through the anxiety of being apart?

We hate seeing her so distraught.