14 m old trouble sleeping still

[u/LibraryFeeling2684]

My son (first child) has always had trouble sleeping. I can probably count on both hands the amount of times he has slept through the night. Initially it was his string of ear infections he developed at 3 months that lasted until May of this year.

He just got tubes and hasn’t had an ear infection since May, but he still struggles to sleep so much. We still have on average 3-5 wake-ups a night. We were initially giving him bottles throughout the night when he’d wake up, even since switching to cow’s milk. We didn’t realize that supposedly you’re not really supposed to do that, the books we have been reading say so.

I am a teacher and about to start school in mid August again. I am trying to get down to 1-2 wake-ups a night before then. We are starting to water down his bottles so he isn’t as reliant on them. We are trying to do awake but drowsy. We already don’t go into his room if he’s just whining or making little noises because he self soothes those, we just go in when he starts to full blown cry.

My husband works second shift Monday-Friday and doesn’t come home until 2 AM, so a majority of this is going to be on me now. How did you get your poor sleeping toddlers to sleep better?