Adopted 2 year-old: sleep issues

Three months ago our son joined us from India. He will very soon be two years old. He's a healthy, lively, happy child and we did not have any of the expected issues: no attachment problems, no eating issues, nothing. We feel he always belonged to our family and that's also the impression we project on everyone around us. We put him to sleep in the same room as his 4 year old sister, whom he loves. At first, he was sleeping quite fine. We kept his schedule as before, just slightly shifted since our day was quite different. After the first weeks, he seemed to have adapted well and was sleeping through the night (8 pm - 6.30-7 am) and having a 2-3 hour nap in the middle of the day. Then tragedy stroke. We used to putting him to sleep in his bed and staying quietly by his side and he would soon shift into sleep. He then started waking several times at night and demanding that we'd iterate this... and in many cases he could be silently awake up to 2 hours in the middle of the night! This was of course not sustainable, so we decided to start some sort of mild sleep training. For several weeks now we've been putting him to bed, caress him a little and then exiting the room. In the first days he would get up or call several times before getting to sleep, now it looks slightly better and he calls/gets up 3 times on average before falling asleep. He went back sleeping through the night for few days and then started waking up very early (4.30 am), with no intention whatsoever of getting back to sleep. We spend the rest of the night until 6 am going back and forth to his room. Also, by 8 am he's terribly cranky, clearly he is not getting the sleep he needs. We are losing our mind again. Our daughter was not an easy sleeper either, it took almost 4 years for her to become a good one. We had to sleep train her with controlled crying when she was almost 1 and still for 3 years she struggled to sleep until 6 am. Our main problem is the fact that our son was adopted. We do not feel comfortable with controlled crying, but at the same time we cannot find any information about any method we could apply here! We'd love to hear from our adoptive parents on the matter! By the way, what I'm already doing now: - fixed schedule and bedtime routine (shower + massage + bedtime story + carillon music) - no exciting activities before going to bed - lavender essential oil massage before sleeping, in the hope of associating the smell with sleeping - favourite toys in bed - giving him porridge 1h before going to bed to fill his tummy - dark room with faint night light ... and cosleeping doesn't work. He's possessed in our bed and no one sleeps. Any advice is warmly welcome!

I'd recommend The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. It has great advice for sleep problems for kids of all ages, and, as the title implies, is about helping your child ease into independent sleep without feeling abandoned. For the early-morning waking problem, you might look at buying him an "Okay to Wake" clock. They're really great for little kids -It sounds like you're doing a TON of things right! It might just be a matter of time and consistency.

I just want to add that when my two year old started that, it was due to his two year molars coming in. He wasn't very fussy, he just wasn't sleeping well at all. Keeping that in mind I also like the No-Cry Sleep Solution.

I apologise for the late reply, I missed replying to rskousen and then completely forgot about it!Good news is that after several weeks the issues ended. It was a long process and unfortunately the No-Cry solution didn't work at all for us. I am happy to share our story, in the hope it can help someone else.We tried several approaches to put him to sleep. 1. We stayed there we he was falling asleep. He would sleep quite soon at first, then it started taking over 30 mins every time. Worse than that, he started waking up several times at night and demanded we stayed there until he would fall asleep, which could easily take 2 hours. Needless to say, this solution was not working for him nor for us.2. We started getting further from his bed every evening while he was falling asleep. We were there, but each evening sitting closer to the door. At some point we were sitting outside, with the door open. Then outside with the door closed. When we started doing the latter, he would get up and come out several times before falling asleep. We stayed consistent for several nights, then gave up. It was not working.3. We started going out of the room but staying on the same floor and going to cuddle him whenever he would call. We did this for weeks, with no improvement. He could call for a full hour.4. We did the same as on point 3, but going only when he was getting up and coming out of the room. Then we would gently bring him back to bed, caress him for a minute with no talking and going out again. We continued for a good month with this approach, again no improvement was seen.Until this point he would sleep poorly also during the night. He would wake up once or twice and call or come to our room and struggle to sleep again and most days he would get up at 5-5.30 if not earlier. He was very cranky during the day and clearly not resting well.Then we tried the next approach.5. After putting the kids to bed, we would go downstairs (and we have a gate on stairs). Then if he was calling we would go after 5 minutes, then after 10, then 15, 20, etc. Luckily he rarely cried, he mostly was calling "mom" or "dad". That allowed us not to feel too guilty. It took few weeks but after all it worked! After few days he started calling less every time, then started sleeping better. He would wake up in the night, maybe call once "mom" and then fall back to sleep. In general we were less prone to go and apparently he learned to soothe himself and that we were one room away. I am thankful we didn't have to go all the way CIO method, and this worked very well. Maybe it was not just the method itself, but more confidence and trust on his side that we developed during the passing months. Anyway, he's now an even better sleeper than his sister ;).Thank you for your replies and support!PS. We had a "okay to wake" clock for our daughter, we took it away because we realised it was doing worse. She would wake up early and then stare at it to see it change, then grew tired and come to wake us up. When we took it away she started sleeping better, probably waking up anyway but going back to sleep. Kids are weird.