Toddler Sleep?

You're not doomed, but it will take some work. We never co-slept mainly because DH and I wanted our own time. But we have had SEVERAL battles with toddlers staying in bed. DD was the worst. She would scream if we didn't lay next to her at bedtime. We started a reward system. Every night we put her to bed and she slept the entire night in bed, she got a sticker and treat in the am. once the chart was full- we did something bigger (usually took her to the store and let her pick something out). We did have to spend the first few weeks with her. We would lay on the floor in her room (at the time she and Avery shared a room so we NEEDED her to sleep on her own!) The first few nights we layed right beside her but told her we would not lay with her. It took her over 2 hrs to fall asleep. But we didn't move. 2 nights later we said we'd move a bit farther toward the door, again until she fell asleep - only took just over an hr if I remember right. Like i said it took some work! every few nights we moved closer to the door. I think after a week we said we would just sit up and not lay down. Soon it became we were sitting at the door, still took her over 30min to fall asleep. Then we would tell her we'd sit for 10min and come back every 5 min and check on her. I think it took almost a full month before we got to just put her to bed and tell her we'd be back in a few minutes to check on her. We did keep up the rewards all this time and it did work finally!. As for getting up in the middle of the night and wanting to sleep with you, I would try to explain to him he's a big boy and needs to sleep in his big boy bed. - maybe a reward chart for this too? We rarely let the kids sleep with us too, we'd let them camp on the floor if it was that bad. You could do that too, say mommy and daddys bed is only for babies, you're a big boy now, if you want to sleep in with us, you need to camp on the floor? Good luck. Sleep issue can be hard!