Baby refusing to go to bed for six weeks AIBU to resent her ☹️

[Smillar2020]

My nine month old has always been a good sleeper up until six weeks ago. For two months she was sleeping 8-6/7 consistently, sometimes with a feed but mostly straight through. For the last six weeks she has refused to go to sleep at 8pm even though she is clearly exhausted. I’ve not been able to get her down before 11pm every night and I’m now resorting to driving her around in the car because I’m so fed up. I’ve tried everything with naps during the day. I’m a single parent so have no help. What can I do as I’m at breaking point and starting to resent my baby for wasting every single night for me. I just need some space at the end of the day to wind down and catch up on things.

Hi op. Our DD was similar at that age, I was making it worse as I was engaging with her, trying to settle, Sleeping on the floor by her - you name it lol. My wife told me we need to sleep train her - we did Controlled crying - honestly wage was asleep within 45 minutes first night and 30 min 2nd night. Now she is 15 months sleeps through every night.

Regarding her climbing out, you need to get a high sided cot we got ours for 20 quid second hand.

It’s worth a try, I can imagine it’s hard without someone else to bounce ideas off, if It was me on my own I’d still be going round in circles now I’m sure

I came to accept fairly early on that I didn't have a good sleeper, it's just the way it is sometimes, even if they had a good few months. Hopefully you won't be like me with a 3 year old who still wakes up in the night sometimes.
However all the bad feelings you have are the product of the stress and lack of sleep yourself plus it's just you so it's a lot of pressure. Ease up on yourself and try not to enforce a routine during all this. Put her to sleep when she's tired only and drop the later nap, I found this helped massively.

I had this for 2 weeks just before 9 months and it helped just relaxing and not stressing about it. If she won't go down after 20 minutes just take her back out of the room and have a cuddle on the sofa with the lights down low. Don't interact too much or let her play.

Another thing that helped was I bought adult books and read them to her while she had her milk in the cot. Sometimes it took half an hour of reading but it wasn't too bad as she wasn't distracted by pictures and I was actually interested. (No stupid voices either so very boring for her)

My daughters nearly 10 months now and goes to sleep at 8.30, usually within less than a minute of putting her in the cot. There were times I couldn't have ever imagined it would be this easy and it feels so good to have my evenings back.

I didn't like the idea of leaving her to cry but on the two occasions I did she cried for less than 5 minutes. I often think if I had done that from the beginning I would of saved us both a lot of stress but who knows

Have you tired putting her in your bed? Lay down with her until she's really asleep and then transfer her to her cot? We did this and it worked. Never leave bub alone tho in the bed as she could roll off

*tried

I just co-slept with mine when they were babies so this wasn’t really an issue, they all went in their cots at one and slept fine. I’d honestly just try that, she’s a baby and she just wants comforting. I know it’s exhausting and relentless, I really do but you don’t have to make things difficult. They’re only babies for a fleeting period.

I'm not an advocate of crying it out by any means but DC3 is a similar age and sometimes I have to leave her to have a little cry in the cot before she settles herself. Usually when she's over tired which it sounds like your DC is if they used to go to bed at 8 and now stretching to 11. Re the escaping the cot, is it on the lowest setting? My DC 8 months pulls up on the side to standing but no way could she climb out. If it's not on the lowest setting it's worth lowering it.

Jesus the mix of advice on here is baffling! Add more naps, she’s overtired, lose the second nap she’s too rested, sleep train, co-sleep...

I think the best thing is to try to get in touch with your health visitor (if they’re working) and tell them how you feel and ask for support. Please do it today. I fear the mix of suggestions on here will make you feel even more confused, overwhelmed and unhappy.

Best advice is Cosleep. Cuddle up and she will go to sleep. Just make sure to get up and not end up asleep for 12 hours!

Pleasenodont Mon 20-Jul-20 10:37:11
I just co-slept with mine when they were babies so this wasn’t really an issue, they all went in their cots at one and slept fine. I’d honestly just try that, she’s a baby and she just wants comforting. I know it’s exhausting and relentless, I really do but you don’t have to make things difficult. They’re only babies for a fleeting period.
.....
I co slept with mine too but first of all they would go to sleep downstairs with us and we'd carry up; two hours later, woke up, brought downstairs again until we went to bed. There was no screaming. It was nice and seemed perfectly natural, we all slept well and weren't exhausted (well I was sometimes but I've always been like that unless my mind is engaged in some sort of interesting project :-) ).