My 10.5 month old baby always wakes crying/screaming and wakes every 1-2hours throughout the night with prolonged and physically demanding resettling periods. It is not a phase, sleep regression, teething, lack of routine, hunger, belly pain, development, medical condition, undertired, overtired, over-stimulated or any of the standard issues. Though all of these things have played a role in worsening things at times. It is constant. She has always been this way or worse. Never improves for any valid amount of time, or to a significant extent, no matter what we do. And we've worked on and tried EVERYTHING! Routine, sleep environment, day time naps, feeding, health, evening stimulation etc are all excellent. She's been medically checked by different doctors, all perfect. She has strong sleep associations (dummy, movement) and seperation anxiety. This is the main problem. I understand the principles of removing them gently and we've been working towards it with some success but we are still up all night long exhausted, aching and in despair.
We tried the Ferber method when she was around 6 months. It was excruciating, worked partially, but was set back entirely by teething and a change in location. Now she's much more aware, physically strong and coordinated, can sit and stand and is even more vocal. We really want to avoid doing any form of 'cry it out' but the text book gentle methods (e.g. put her in the cot drowsy) all result in her screaming and crying instantly, hysterically and uncontrollably anyway. No amount of patting, rubbing, singing, reassuring will stop her so we just end up picking her up. Result: little to no progress but significantly less sleep and more stress for us.
We are way past our wits end. No 'expert' seems to get how extreme she is and they just tell us all the things we've already read and tried.
So the question: does anyone have any outside of the box advice, tips or experience that might help us? Or does anyone have experience of a 'cry it out' method with a baby like this?
And if you've made it this far in the post, thanks for reading 
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