Terrible sleeper! Help!

My daughter is almost 2 1/2. For the first 9 months of her life, she was a great sleeper. It's been all down hill ever since then. She very rarely sleeps through the night. I could handle getting up and dealing with her once or twice a night if she'd go right back to sleep, but every couple of weeks she'll wake up and be awake for hours before going back to sleep. Last night, she was awake from 1:30 until 2:45 or so. The last few nights have been absolutely terrible. The other night, she cried out every hour or so, but when I'd go in her room, she'd still be asleep. So she was basically talking/crying in her sleep. (At one point she mentioned Angry Birds. lol) I don't know what to do about it. She sleeps in her own room, and has since she was only a few weeks old. We have a regular bedtime routine that we always do, and then we leave her alone to put herself to sleep. Recently, she's been taking almost an hour to fall asleep at night. She still naps in the afternoon. Usually around two hours, but we've had issues on nights that she's skipped nap too, so I don't think it's related. What do I do?

When we had sleep issues with Devon, I read the Sleep Lady book Good Night Sleep Tight. It covers all different ages and all different reasons for not sleeping. Worked wonders with her!

Quoting ♥ Mama Jo ♥:" When we had sleep issues with Devon, I read the Sleep Lady book Good Night Sleep Tight. It covers all different ages and all different reasons for not sleeping. Worked wonders with her!"

I'll have to check it out. Thanks. I'm in the process of weaning her off her last nursing session. She generally wakes up at 5am, ends up in bed with us and nurses herself back to sleep. I'm wondering if that's part of the reason she has a hard time falling back to sleep on her own, combined with the fact that she recently quit sucking her thumb, so she doesn't have that to fall back on either.