Ava vs. Bedtime

For about the past three months, we've been having escalating sleep issues with Ava. I think it goes further back than that: she slept like a champ from about 7 weeks until she started getting ear infections at 9 months, and she had constant infections that meant a lot of sleepless nights for both of us until she finally got tubes at 13 months (and never had an ear issue after that). I seriously think those four horrible months ruined my good sleeper. Until recently though, she usually just cried out in her sleep, and most of the time we didn't have to go in there, she'd go back to sleep on her own. Three months ago, she stopped fearing the consequences of getting out of her crib and simultaneously became very needy at night, so we switched her to a big-girl bed, thinking as long as one of us had to go in there, we might as well have a bed to lay down in. This put us on a downward spiral with sleep issues and if I wasn't already pregnant with baby #2 when it had started, I definitely would've stopped trying! Here are the issues:

1.) Ava freaks out at bedtime and won't fall asleep unless someone (read: ME) sits with her. Oh believe me, we tried cry it out/tough love. But I have to admit now it doesn't work in every situation, as she had a complete meltdown, ripped things off of her wall, and slammed herself repeatedly against the door, screaming like a banshee. She peed on herself in the process...and I have to stop because she was acting like someone who was terrified, not angry. My desire to be tough kind of stops if it's traumatizing my kid, you know? So every night since late September/early October, I have sat in her room with her. Most of the time she falls asleep in 30-40 minutes, but not always...I sit in the corner and look at my iPad and refuse to interact with her.

2.) She wakes up during the night, usually between 12-2am, and comes into our bedroom to sleep on our chair-and-a-half. We let her because: 1. we both work full time and desperately need the sleep, especially me, being pregnant and half the time flying solo as a parent 2. one of us used to accompany her back to her room and sleep in there with her, but we felt that was worse 3. we've drawn the line at kids sleeping in our bed and the chair definitely feels like a lesser evil--half the time I don't even wake up when she comes in here.

3.)She cries out a lot in her sleep, talks, and sometimes gets up and runs around while having a total meltdown for no reason at all while saying things that don't make sense, so I think she has night terrors (or she's possessed).

4.) She's been taking Zyrtec for two years for allergies, and after my mom told me that certain cold medicines really messed with my sleep when I was a kid, I decided to take her off of it in case that was contributing to the problem. I think she's currently going through withdrawal, I'm not kidding.

Tonight, after sitting in there for over an hour without her falling asleep, I decided to have Tinkerbell help me out...about two months ago I bought her a Tinkerbell doll and told her she could have it if she stayed in her bed. She never got the stupid doll. So tonight, I took it into her room and told her that Mommy had to go take a shower and get ready for bed, so would it be okay if Tinkerbell stayed in there with her instead of Mommy? Ava was THRILLED. I reiterated several times that if she got out of bed, I'd take Tink away. I also left the door open, so she could hear us moving around, which I figured would be more comforting than feeling cut off from the world. After 10-15 min, she was still doing fine so I showered. Got out of the shower, she was still in her room.....SUCCESS!!!! Then a little while ago, Craig came walking out of her room...I had no idea he was in there. Apparently she cried when I was in the shower so instead of reinforcing the Tinkerbell thing, he sat in there and completely ruined everything. I could kill him right now....KILL HIM. I'm going to try again tomorrow but I think that's now been taken off the table, and it's back to having no earthly idea what to do.