Although this isn't a question directly related to sleeping only, I still think it's a good one for discussing the more "stable" age of 2 years old. I wanted to post this question ASAP since it comes from a mom, K., due with her second child in SIX DAYS! My guess is there won't be a lot of blog reading in the near future for her…

I love this question because there's just so many factors to consider and so many of them touch issues that many of us have had to deal with. I'll tell you right now I won't nail them all. But let's try to take this apart so we can see what this decision will really entail. K's done a great job of thinking all the various parts of the transition through. The main concerns seem to be:

1. Is this an ok age to make a bunch of changes in a child's life?
2. How much change can a child take without some significant level of distress (which, of course, K doesn't want to inflict on her daughter)?
3. What sorts of things are there to consider in order to make this transition go as smoothly as possible?
4. How will K's daughter respond (behaviourally and in terms of sleep disruptions)?

There's one more issue that I think is at stake here, although K doesn't mention it explicitly and that is:
5. To what extent is it ok to prioritize my own professional and personal preferences over some level of distress from my daughter?

All of these concerns are so intricately intertwined that it's tough to deal with one without considering the others. The bottom line is this decision will be about balancing the various needs of all family members. Let's start with #1: This is a relatively good age to go through changes in the child's life. Your daughter is just heading out of the toughest part of the 18-22 developmental upheaval. Of course, these are rough estimates of age boundaries so it would have been nice if your daughter was slightly  older, but still, she should have covered most of the crazy neediness/clinginess/crabbiness by then. But by 22 months or so, your child is more calm, more stable, and more secure than she was just recently. The massive cognitive changes ushered in by the 18-22 month shift have begun to consolidate. She has gotten used to being a social player in a social world. She understands what you require of her at meal-time and bedtime. Which means that she understands rules and she can adapt to them if she has to. This age can be a real delight because they start getting how fun it is to FOLLOW rules and to be a part of the family in whole new ways. But they're also now attuned to separations in a way they weren't before 18 months or so. You’re dealing with a child who is a lot smarter and more verbal than ever before. Driven by insecurity and anxiety about separations of any sort, these skills will be put to use to get your attention and comfort as much as possible. But still… making the big changes you're considering will be a lot easier now than at 2.5  years old.

#2 is about how much change is too much change. There's no REAL, data-driven answer to this of course. It all depends on the child and her sensitivities, it also depends on the TYPE of change and it also has a lot to do with how the parents are coping with the changes. She's now taking a whole lot of social cues from you, so if mom and dad are happy and excited about the next move, she will tune into that and likely join in the fun. And the TYPE of change is important here also. Yes, she's leaving her nanny and her house and neighborhood. But she'll be gaining much more access to grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and all the warmth and gushing love and excitement that could entail (never mind all the extra support you will get which will, in turn, help you parent with less stress). As you say, the sibling is coming whether she likes it or not. That will be a HUGE transition to deal with and you've thought about this big change deeply. But it actually may be EASIER for your daughter to deal with a new sibling if you do move. Whacky thought, huh? But here's where I'm coming from: Many parents report that the best thing they ever did for the older child to cope with a new sibling is to put him/her in daycare. There, the child gets lots of attention from other adults, she doesn't have to fight mom for her love and affection, and she really feels like she's becoming a "big girl" with a "baby sister" at home. Then when she comes home from daycare, she can have "special time" with mommy while dad takes care of the baby for a while. Your daughter will also have extra access to a bunch of loving adults, her extended family. This may possibly go a long way to buffering the rejection she may feel from mom being with the baby so often.

And here's a crucial point: What WON'T change is mom and dad's love and affection for her. At this age, children aren't as attached to places as they are to their primary caregivers. If they stay stable, predictable, and provide the same love and limits that were set in the old context, chances are they'll adjust quite well in a new place.

#3: What are some practical things to consider if you DO decide to move… I have a few thoughts, but it would be great if anyone else has made a significant move like this one to pipe in with further suggestions.

- Talk about the move with lots of excitement and joy. Plan TOGETHER with your daughter what her new bedroom will look like, how often she'll see grandma, and so on.

- Even if you DO feel lots of anxiety about how she'll cope, don't overly project those anxieties onto her. In other words, you want to let her express her fears of moving, her anger at her new sibling's arrival, her anxieties about not being mommy's little girl, but you want those to mostly come from her. Kids pick up our worries so easily and make them their own, even when they weren't there originally. Open ended questions that provide some choices help if you notice her feeling angry or sad. Something like:  "Are you mad or sad or something else?" Why? Is it because of mommy or daddy or baby?"

- Try to leave yourself several weeks open before you go to work at the new job. So, move several weeks before your mat leave ends. That way, you can put your child into daycare (or whatever arragement you choose) in the next city and deal with any transitional anxieties or behavioural problems before you also have to worry about being on time for work. 

- In terms of sleep specifically, try to mimic the context that she was sleeping in before as much as possible. Go through the same bedtime ritual, play the same music, read the same books, use the same blankets. Put her to bed at the same time and try to enforce those limits as much as possible even though she will surely push on them. This is going to be a time of heightened anxiety and our temptation in these times is often to become more LAX in our rules about sleep. The paradox is that this is exactly when children need us MOST to remain firm, so that they feel like their world is a predictable one, one that can't be shifted easily by the little rages of scared children. They need us to say "everything will be alright, you have to follow this rule, as you always have; we are the big people here and we'll take care of everything."

- Invite lots of family over to your new place early on, even if you're still living in boxes. This will help your daughter realize how great the new move was and how much more love and attention might be hers to enjoy (make sure that you give your family a heads up and ask them to hold and play with your older one as much or more than with the new baby).

#4 In terms of how your daughter will respond, as you can see, it depends on loads of factors and even if you do everything "perfectly" (which doesn't exist), she'll still have normal fears and anxieties that she'll have to work through with your help. Yes, that might entail more tantrums and less sleep. And if you're prepared for this and understand that it's a normal part of adjusting to novelty, it does
n't have to be a horror-filled time at all.

And this bleeds into the unexpressed issue #5: The bottom line for me is that if this job is your dream job and it's also a great location that affords you so many benefits that you look forward to (professionally and personally), then go for it! Your children will adjust, perhaps much easier than you anticipate. And if your daughter does have some difficulties, it's interesting to note that with the very, very rare exception, "biographical memory" doesn't really start until age 3 (in other words, she won't even remember the move by the time she's around 5). I'm partly kidding here (biographical memory does begin usually at around 3, but that's not the point). The point is that you are a thoughtful, engaged, empathic parent who cares deeply for her child's emotional well-being. That will pull her through almost any dramatic transition unscarred and likely better for it.

Good luck and keep us posted on your decision, if you can!

Here's a question from someone that I can finally feel good about saying "Go for it!  This is a GREAT time for making some changes!" After that volatile period of 8 – 11 months that we've talked about at length, there's a relatively peaceful window between around 12 and 16 months (with the caveat that some kids do start walking around this age and for SOME kids, this can be very disruptive for sleep… but for most, this is a nice, stable stage).

First off, I think it's a great idea, if you can do it, to night-wean before making big changes with the co-sleeping situation. It's not necessary, but it sure makes it a lot easier. To answer your question about when is a good time to go from co- to alone-sleeping, you're just about to enter one of the best windows right now.  Why?

Sleep training at this stage gets a boost from the toddler’s sense of autonomy, he has a new-found interest in the nonsocial world, he's relatively independent and secure, and he's developing a real sense of connection and social power through the beginnings of language. Most children some time during this stage begin to walk and they are SO INTO getting around and exploring… which makes them a little less into you. Many kids this age can bounce back from emotional challenges, they don't need to cling desperately to the image of a recently departed parent. However, sleep training at this age is also hampered by the 1-year old’s savvy. This kid has just emerged from a phase of relatively intense separation distress. Separations are no longer neutral. They are associated with feelings of loss, anxiety, sadness, and frustration. Although the peak intensity of separation reactions has passed by now, such reactions have not disappeared. Not at all. For the rest of his life, the child will never be entirely free of the potential for pain and anxiety that comes with being left alone and the sense of helplessness that goes with it.

As a result, the 12-16-month old toddler may defy your efforts to change his bedtime routine. He WILL whine, or yell, or cry to get you back, aware of the power of his voice to bring you back. Introducing a new stuffed animal into his "new" crib might help. Music to keep him company while he's trying to fall asleep may also help. Bedtime rituals, consisting of stories or songs that emphasize his connection to you and to the world may also be a great way of bridging his day and night. This child, so autonomous an hour ago, needs to connect with you, needs to know that you are still within range. He needs to know that separation is not permanent, and that you’re going to come back of your own accord. He needs to feel your love and your care, to know that he is the object of your attention and concern, and that he can call to you when it’s time for reassurance. When he calls for you, at least at first, it's a good idea to let him know you'll be right there. He's used to you being with him every moment of the night (or with your mother). So, if you can feel the confidence and independence that your child is feeling through the day and trust that he can go through the night with minimal intervention from you, then transitioning him to his own crib is likely to work. As I've said before, the method that you choose to make this transition is up to you.

Many of the pitfalls of sleep training at this age emerge from your child’s spirit and his intelligence. His hands will find a way to make contact with every object on the dresser—that tube of cream, the box of tissues, the baby wipes, the pictures on the wall you thought were out of reach.  Whether on his way to the crib or once in there, he will use every opportunity to play and explore rather than acquiesce to sleep. And he may be clever enough to capture you in his play (I remember the ridiculous game that BOTH my boys got into of throwing their stuffed animals on the floor, one by one, each time screaming "oh-oh mama!" each time forcing me to come back up and toss the animal back. TEN. THOUSAND. TIMES. a night). You may see this as bedtime, but for your toddler it’s just another episode of play time. But whatever the obstacles you encounter, 12-16 months is a far easier time to initiate the shift from co-sleeping to sleeping on his own than either of the periods surrounding it. You just came from a stage of peak separation reactions combined with social referencing,  and you’re about to enter a stage when the toddler’s whole social-emotional world is turned on its head, when defiance and autonomy compete with abject neediness and insecurity.

In terms of the specifics of how long will it take for him to learn to
put himself to sleep and how long until you can sleep in the same room
again, I can't give you a definitive answer. There are huge differences
among kids who transition from co-sleeping to sleeping on their own.
Some have NO PROBLEMS at all, much to the shock of their parents. Some can take more than a month to make the transition slowly. And still others don't make the transition during childhood at all, if the parents decide the change isn't worth the stress and tears. Some kids are most amenable to the more gentle, gradual approaches (for example, you first move the child to a pack and play right next to your bed and hold his hand or rub his back through the night, then move the p & p a bit farther from you every day until the baby is essentially across the room, in his crib). While other children find those techniques ultimately frustrating and confusing, but respond beautifully to a straightforward Ferber-like method of checking in on the child in the crib at increasing intervals.

GOOD LUCK!  Anyone else have good or bad luck sleep training during this stage? What worked or didn't for you?

Here's a challenge a lot of you seem to be going through: transitioning a child from a crib to a "big kid's bed." I think I've said this before on this blog, but I'll say it again: I was SURE I'd never move my kids out of their cribs until MAAAAAAAAAYBE when they reached adolescence and the bars on the cribs couldn't be nailed any higher. I'm serious. I LOVED those cribs, mainly because my boys loved their cribs. And they slept in them. For many, many hours. And when they did not sleep, they were still IN their beds. Contained. But in a socially-acceptable, non-locked, un-toruturey-looking sort of way. Oh how I feared the move to big boy beds. Oh how I put that transition off… And then things changed and I had to suck it up and just do it. Here's the question (the child is 2):

Alrighty… there's a few things going on here and I'll take them in turn. First, let's start with his age (I'm so predictable that way). Two years old can be a GREAT age to make big changes. He's gone through the messiest part of the 18 – 22 month transition and he should be feeling a lot more emotionally resilient and relatively stable now. I'll write more about this stage soon, but the bottom line is that your child should generally be less clingy and anxious than a few months prior and more feisty and independent (generally speaking, of course). So, yeah, good age to move things around if you must. ESPECIALLY since a new baby is coming and change is going to be hard at 2.5 years old, no matter what form it takes.

Second, um, yeah, you really WERE lucky with those first two weeks and unfortunately your instinct is right, you should probably just chock it up to a fluke and move on to problem-solving the current situation as it stands (which is of course exactly what you're doing). Also… if it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure that your son would have eventually figured out the joys of hopping out of bed and running whacky through the house even if his molars DIDN'T come out and you HADN'T gone away for a trip. It's generally just a matter of time until the little monkeys get it and most of us have to actually implement some sort of "rule" about staying in bed before they reliably stay put.

Third, you obviously have a HUGE life-altering change that's going to be happening to your whole family, including your son, very soon. I completely agree with your decision to make any changes now, before the new baby comes. And the sooner the better so that your son doesn't "blame" the baby for kicking him out of his own bed. So, I think you have at least two ways to go with this:
1. If he sleeps beautifully in his crib still, you can easily let him go for another year there if you want to (if he's not endangering himself by climbing out). At two, they're still little roly-polies, squirming all over the bed during the night, and often feeling a lot more secure in a crib than a big bed. So, if you don't want to buy another crib for the new baby, you can get yourself a pack and play (they were called play pens in my "youth") or a similar idea through Craigslist or any second hand store. They're generally very inexpensive if you take that route and the new baby won't know the difference for at least 6 months.
2. You can bite the bullet and REALLY transition your boy to his big bed. That means take the crib right out of the equation, otherwise, your son knows that you'll place him there eventually when he's oppositional (develpmental psychologists' way of saying a "pain in the ass") and runs away. He's probably enjoying that game by now and his goal may ultimately be to land himself in the crib. You can make a big to-do about moving to a big bed permanently and then go through the regular old routine that you are loathe to do: when he gets out of his big bed, walk him back calmly, probably 100,000 times the first nigh 90,000 times the second night, and so on. Walk him back to his room when he gets out of bed with as much neutral emotion as possible. Don't get angry or playful, don't talk much to him, just say the same thing each time you escort him back to his bed, something like: it's time for bed now, please stay tucked in, see you tomorrow morning. You WILL prevail. He WILL get bored of bouncing out of his bed the ten trillionth millionth time, but it may take a few nights of staying consistent with this message.

I know option 2 really, really sucks because you need your sleep and you're very pregnant and tired and NOT in the mood to play tag an hour after bedtime and it's just SO MUCH EASIER to give up and plop him in the crib and be done with it! The main thing I wanted to emphasize with these last 2 options is that at this point, it seems like giving him choices about where to sleep might be confusing him in the end and he may be developing new habits that will need to be broken when the baby comes (NOT a time when you want to deal with this). Although I understand your initial rationale for wanting to ease your son into the choice of where to sleep, I think right now, presenting the option of the crib vs big boy bed may prolong the inevitable transition and make it harder on everyone involved.

Any other parents with siblings who have dealt with this transition? Suggestions, words of commiseration, success stories or cautionary tales?

Here's a question from N., the gist of which represents a significant number of emails that I receive.

First and foremost, this is SUCH a tough age. I remember the panic I felt when I realized how much longer this whole infancy thing was going to last. At the time, I couldn't imagine making it "to the other side." A few thoughts: First, your baby actually does need to wake up at least a couple of times during the night to be fed. That doesn't mean she needs to wake up every hour for that nourishment, but it's good to keep in mind that the vast majority of infants need their stomachs re-filled every 3-4 hours or so. Second, you may find that your baby hits 3 months old and naturally starts sleeping longer stretches (and not necessarily on top of you either). These shifts may occur naturally, without you doing anything at all because those first 2.5 months are filled with huge biological changes that are settling down right about now. But if your baby DOES continue to wake up every hour or two and does not settle down easily afterwards and if you simply can't go on like this much longer, you can certainly consider some form of gentle sleep training methods.

As I mentioned in Part I of the 3 to 4 month stage description, this is the only stage that I am somewhat hesitant to recommend because the distress levels of the baby really do need to be monitored by the parent. But on the other hand, there are several reasons why we included this stage — in the book — as one of the
possible periods to sleep-train:
1. There are DESPERATE mothers like the one who posted the question who can't go on feeling sane without some change. I don't know this particular woman's circumstance, but many mothers also either need or want to go back to
work by the time their child is 3 months old. These mothers often have no
choice but to try SOMETHING. My main point is that if you feel you
have to do something, don't try sleep training at 4 months if you can avoid it and earlier than 2.5 months isn't wise either.
2. We have heard remarkably consistent reports from parents who did
gently sleep train (i.e., not CIO methods, more like "no-cry sleep
solutions") at this window with great success. Although I personally
didn't feel comfortable doing any kind of sleep training with my boys
at
this age (especially since they were 4 weeks premature and I had "issues", let's just say…), I strongly
feel that it's important to provide the developmental
information
and let parents make the decisions for themselves.
3. I think it's important to consider the unique properties of each developmental stage and think about whether there are some special considerations that should be made in terms of methods that might work best. From my perspective, I'd like to emphasize that whatever method is used
during this period, it shouldn't result in letting the baby cry for
more than 5-10 min max (I don't know about your baby, but mine cried
more than that if they were in their carseat and I stopped at a red
light). This is the only age at which I'm careful to dissuade parents
from picking a method that will involve prolonged distress because
the baby is simply biologically incapable of regulating intense distress by herself; she
needs mom and/or dad to bring her back down (of course, some babies DO calm themselves down at this age, but very few can do so when they are really, really wailing).

If you find that your baby doesn't take to sleep training easily during this age, and you feel you need to stop, then there ARE things you can do to maximize your own sleep. Some common suggestions: (1) Enlist your partner to take half the night shift and you do the other half. So, if you're breastfeeding, you can consider pumping or supplementing with formula and asking your partner to take the 10 pm – 2 am shift and you can take over for the 2 am – 7 am shift. That way, each of you are at least getting a 5-hour chunk of sleep in a row. (2) Hire a "mommy's helper" if you can afford it. This person can help soothe your baby to sleep after you feed her during the day and maximize nap times for you. She can also take your baby for a walk while you catch a nap. (3) Every 3 days or so, you can ask your partner to take the full night shift so you can catch up. Again, your partner can give the baby a bottle of breastmilk or formula when the baby wakes up. That way, you can always refuel twice a week and feel just a little more human. (4) If you can afford it, night doulas or night nurses that come very highly recommended can be serious life-savers when your partner can't help. Hiring someone even once/week might just give you enough energy to get you through the worst of this time. (5) Some people also find that co-sleeping during the worst of the frequent wakings works for them. It really DOES come to an end eventually and although 6 months seems completely impossible to imagine getting to at this point, your baby WILL get to that stage when sleep training may take much easier (believe me, I really DO get it, having had twin babies who woke up every other hour — and NOT the same hour — througout the first 6 months, I feel your horror like I was there yesterday).

What do you
think? Words of encouragement or wisdom for N.? Anyone out there who sleep-trained during this age and was
thrilled with the results (I know you're out there because I've talked
to many of you)? Does anyone want to respectfully gasp in horror at my
recommendation to try sleep training at this age?

There are so many mixed feelings about sleep training (guilt, strident confidence, defensiveness, desperation, resignation, and so on) and I think, in part, it's a reflection of more general parenting philosophies. There are some of us that started out thinking that we'd be exceptionally responsive to our baby's needs and we'd give up taking care of ourselves for the privilege of taking care of an innocent baby. There are others of us who vowed to keep our own personal and professional lives while making reasonable compromises for our new baby. And still some of us went into this parenting thing with no clue that we'd have any "parenting philosophy" whatsoever until we saw that horrid woman with her sweet child and she… <you fill in the blank>. Somehow, many of us become so wildly committed to the paths that we chose explicitly or stumbled upon. Despite the wildly controversial issues that parents (mostly mothers) feel compelled to fight for (breast or bottle, daycare or SAH, CIO or co-sleep), the truth is that not much of it makes a reliable difference in the futures of our children. Short of flat-out abuse, neglect and SERIOUS conflict in the family context, most parenting is "good enough." And I for one am so grateful for that empirical fact.

I recently received the following question from a reader:

My short response is: you're doing everything right, your baby is following very normal sleep patterns, and I hope that the 4-month sleep transition doesn't make things harder. This really is a description of the average sleep pattern many 3.5 month olds experience. In response to the main question about whether there are benefits to sleep training (and not merely the lack of detrimental effects), no, there is no well-designed study that can answer your question. But researchers and consumers of research can use the data as they like. So… yes, good sleep has been consistently associated with better performance on complex problem-solving tasks, better memory, improved mood (decreased risk of depression) and better physical reflexes. But many babies suck at sleeping and this "suckiness" has NOT been proven to be associated with long-term negative outcomes. More to the point of the reader's question, being a "well trained" sleeper as a baby has not been shown to lead to any BETTER outcomes. That's because it is almost impossible to design the right study to answer this question rigorously. I'll save you the research methodology course that I suffered through, but suffice it to say that to really establish that there are actual long-term, IMPORTANT benefits to having been sleep-trained, you'd have to randomly assign parents to either sleep train their child or not, no matter their actual parenting philosophy, their own upbringing, their child's temperament, the amount of support they had in their lives, the necessity for parents to go back to work early in the child's life, and so on. In short, there's no ethical way to run such a study. So… what we're stuck with is a bunch of studies that look at some families that DO sleep train and some that DON'T. And guess what? These families don't only differ on whether they sleep trained or not. They differ on all the other variables that I just mentioned: parenting philosophy, family history, support, family structure, child temperament, and so on. And those factors have a complex, interactive effect on child outcomes. Some children's temperaments are easier than others and this makes some children easier to sleep train for some parents. For other parents, they don't feel the need to sleep train these children with easier temperaments. Both families and children fair well. You can see the problem when you then add all the other variables that I mentioned. In short, there's no ethical way to do this kind of science to answer the question absolutely.

So… what we do know is being a sensitive, responsive parent while at the same time setting reasonable limits matters for the long-term developmental outcomes of our children. So does being personally happy, emotionally resilient, financially secure, and happily married (or in a secure, non-conflictual relationship). And if we're none of those things, if we're financially stressed, a single mom, bouncing back and forth between depression and "ok-ness", we are STILL likely to bring up our children to be thoughtful, loving, resilient, motivated, successful adults. All the research I have read (way too much to link to here, but see the books I reference in the sidebar), reviewed, and conducted myself has led me and many others to the same general conclusion: We need to screw up BIG TIME to really put our children at serious risk for long-term negative outcomes. Oh, and BTW, we can also do everything "right" and still have children who take drugs, have unsafe sex, get arrested or end up sad and lonely at the end of their life.

Sleep training matters in the day-to-day way that parenting always matters. But we're all trying to do our best, working with what instincts we have and compensating for what we don't with as much reading and surfing the web as we can fit in. Most of us will muddle through because we care enough to do our best (yes, it sounds like a commercial and I am SO cheesy sometimes). And chances are, our kids will be just fine, no matter if we Ferberize, co-sleep, CIO, use "no-cry" strategies, or say to hell with all of this sleep training.

Many of you have written about being in the middle of one of the major stage transitions in development and not knowing what to do if sleep-training isn't a good option during these sensitive ages. Here's a typical question, from K:

Oy indeed! Most of what I've got for you is huge amounts of sympathy; this really is so hard. I think you have a very good grasp of what's going on in your little girl's head and anxiety is exactly the root of the problem. Unlike before the age of 18 months or so, she's now able to hold in mind her own goals and intentions (I must keep Mama HERE!) while simultaneously being aware of your conflicting goals (Mama wants to leave/get a life away from this bed). This is a phenomenal achievement! But the fact that she now has this advanced social understanding also means that she is in a constant state of negotiation with you for MORE! NO GO! MOMMY STAY!

The toddler at this age is somewhat of an addict. She wants nothing more than to continue to have access to your attention, your approval, and your presence. ALL. THE. TIME. That’s why 18-21 month old kids repeatedly call after mother, even though she is RIGHT THERE. (I remember distinctly when my boys were this age and they'd both be in my arms, climbing "uppy, UPPY" ever higher until there was no where else to go, no closer they could come to me, no more smashed up against me than they already were… and still they'd wail MAMA!). So, as I've mentioned before, your child at this age, though feisty and independent, is also insecure and often anxious, especially during times of impending separation (as you described perfectly in your question).

Given the powerful emotional vulnerabilities of this stage, now is not the time to entirely reconstruct bedtime habits, centered as they are on closeness, shared routines, mutual affection, and assurances of continued emotional connection. Ideally, now is a time to comfort and reassure, not to challenge or withdraw. But what on earth do you do when your regular acts of comfort, valiant and consistent as they have been, are not enough anymore?

I think the key goal here is to try to minimize your little girl's anxiety levels. That requires a context or routine that is completely predictable. I suspect that if she knows exactly what to expect from you and your husband and she knows that she can't do anything to change that, then her anxiety about figuring out how to keep you there will be start decreasing over time. This isn't about "breaking her spirit" or anything nutty like that. It's about letting her know that she doesn't have to WORRY about finding the right thing to say, do, yell, cry, whatever so that mommy stays with her. You will provide her with nourishment, love, physical comfort, and then you will let her fall asleep. So… what can you do to create an environment that decreases her anxiety? Unfortunately, I can't think of any magic bullet here. There's probably 3 general approaches:

1. The first is the "grin and bear it" approach. Given that she'll be out of this stage in a month or so, you can try to resign yourself to a longer bedtime routine. Lie next to her, nurse her, repeatedly tell her it's time to sleep and provide lots of warmth but as little stimulation as possible. This might really suck if she's still tap dancing on your head to the tune of "Mama, mama, mama", but if you show her that you'll consistently stay until she's asleep, then her protests may become less intense and shorter lived. At this point, her refusal to sleep might be in large part about not knowing whether this will be one of the nights you'll stay or finally get fed up and go.  

2. You can try to go with the old routine which will surely now require some distress on her part. In other words, you can lie with her, nurse her, and then after 30 min or so, leave, saying that it's time for bed, not playing. This will feel like you're actually sleep training her. And in a way you are, but back to the OLD routine. If you come back and check on her regularly, but stand firm on staying out of the bed with her, then she will eventually realize that her protests don't work to get you back. Although in some ways that sounds heartbreaking, the other way to look at is that you are actually RELIEVING her of her source of anxiety. If you know for sure you can't get what you want, you stop being preoccupied with that goal. Without that preoccupation, she may actually enjoy her time WITH you more and feel less anxious after, when you do leave.

3. If the crying gets unbearable for you and the hours of lying with her becomes equally crazy-making, then you can just bite the bullet and try your preferred sleep-training method that will teach her new sleep habits altogether (this can be where your husband really steps up to the plate). This isn't what I usually recommend during this stage, but if the alternatives become too unbearable, it is doable, it's just really, really hard.

To sum up: I think what you want to avoid are those acts that heighten her uncertainty. Walking away because you (understandably) have had enough may be the first step to triggering her distress, but what keeps it going is her knowledge that you MIGHT come back. So, predictability is key — in whatever form you feel you can provide. Walk out and stay out (within reason of course) or hop in bed for the night with her until this freaking awful stage passes. Because it WILL pass.

Anyone else in a similar situation, stuck in a sensitive stage with no way out but through? Does knowing it IS just a phase and it WILL pass help at all?