Sleep train...or what else?

[Pumpkinbumkin200]

10 month old. Breastfeeds to sleep/rocks to sleep if awake. Lately whenever she wakes in the night just screams if I attempt to put her back in the cot. Last night was it took 2.5 hours in the night of me rocking/feeding and trying to transfer her to the cot before she finally stayed asleep.
Can't co sleep due to space and also I never sleep well with her in the bed so wouldn't get anymore sleep anyway.
Is sleep training the only option? I'm not even sure that would work as sometimes my back aches so much from rocking her that I've had to put her in her cot for 5 mins to lie down and she's just screamed the whole time. I have a toddler too and something has to give now I'm exhausted. Partner helps where he can but baby only wants me at night.

Ds was 10 months. I was on my absolute knees... 5 or 6 bf every night.

Sent dh in with a bottle of milk - he had an ounce. Laid him back down no chat. Next night bottle of water.. Drank none. Third night ds slept 7 til 7. For years. Ds had been a crabby shattered dc for months. Overnight literally he transformed into an angel.

10 months was a tough time for my DD. She had bad separation anxiety and co-sleeping helped us. Rocking her to sleep didn't work so I fed her to sleep instead.
We ended up putting her cot next to our bed with the side down and she started happily sleeping in it. It was tough though, she started going to sleep with just a cuddle but it took a lot of patience.
By 11.5 months she was sleeping through the night and now she's 16.5 months she pretty much sleeps through every night. She is teething at the moment so it's about 1 wake up a night.
Sleep training isn't for me so it was never an option, even when I was really struggling with the lack of sleep.

I know you say co-sleeping wouldn't work for you due to space but it is will just be a phase, a difficult one though.

In this situation with my 9 month old. Literally no clue what to do anymore. I’ve tried to every single method in existence and none of them work.
takes nearly 4hrs to put her to bed at night.
she wakes anywhere between eight very 2-4 hours and has 3hr long split nights almost every single night, wakes early or has a long split night and wakes up really late morning and messes up her nap times. Naps used to be easier but she won’t let me put her down for those either now.
she’s miserable all day every day through lack of sleep and I am completely and utterly out of options. I’ve given up hope they she’ll ever improve.

It's classic time for separation anxiety AND teething..
Up to you but I wouldn't sleep train

@CurlyOrchid that sounds horrific. It's so hard isn't it. I'm dreading the evenings now as I know it's going to be a bad night and I have no evening to myself really as I feel I need to try to sleep whilst I can after I've put them both to bed. Have you tried sleep training?
@Hungrycaterpillarsmummy yep she is getting her first front tooth finally. So I suppose that could be it too. It's broken through but still only small.

Yeah this is the thing isn’t it, every time she’s awake instead of being enjoying time with her I’m dreading the next nap or bedtime battle and even when I get her to bed I’ve got no idea if I should try getting some sleep be she she could be up in less than an hour or she might do four hours, it’s a total lottery.

yes, I’ve tried different versions of sleep training, I pretty much tried every gentle menthol there is but they just didn’t work and in the end I tried CIO out of desperation but with a limit of 30mins crying and then I’d go back in and comfort her. I’m coming to realise that she’s quite a high needs baby and nothing ever works consistently, some night she’ll cry for ten minutes and then roll around happily playing until she falls asleep, I’ve just done bedtime tonight and she screamed the house down for 30 mins so I went back in to feed and comfort, tried again and she screamed for another ten minutes and she was in such a state I ended up feeding her to sleep and actually managed to put her in the cot which some nights she just will not let me do no matter how long I try long for. It’s all a guessing game.

all I can say to you is that I think it very much depends on the temperament of your child and if you’re at the point of not knowing what else to do then you could try it and see how it goes, there’s nothing saying you have to continue something that’s not working. I think my child is proof that some children cannot be ‘trained’ into certain things.

And also please don’t take notice of anyone on here who may be judgemental, people have no right to judge someone when they aren’t in their situation.

Hmm, floor bed? I had to do this with DS - he just would not be put back in the cot, woke every time, and would never go to sleep by himself. In the end put the cot mattress on the floor, cuddle him to sleep then sneak out. He was between 9 and 10 months, so similar age. Worth a try? If you have a high needs baby sleep training just won't really work

Good thing to try!

doesn’t work with mine as she just either plays or screams anyway.

high needs is tough.

No sleep training isn’t the answer. You baby is going through developmental leaps and is at the height of separation anxiety, leaving them to cry is probably the worst thing you could do.

tbe fact that so many people are commenting about the same ‘problem’ shows that babies waking up in the night is normal and to be expected.

I get it. I get you’re tired and exhausted and achey. But the best thing you can do is ride it out. My LO isn’t that much older and when he went through this phase I’d just take him downstairs (he’s still in our room) dim the light and read to him etc. there’s no point fighting a battle with it all being in tears.

Why does everyone always assume we are thinking of our own well-being here? Yeah sure we’re tired and broken but personally I’ll deal with that because it’s just a part of parenting, my issue is the fact that my baby is constantly tired and miserable from lack of sleep and some days doesn’t even get to play or practice any skills at all because it’s all about trying to get her to catch up on sleep. She missed lunch altogether today because she was so overtired but refused to sleep for hours.
no one is saying that by sleep training you’ll be shutting the door on then at 7pm and not going back in until 7am, sleep training can mean all kinds of things and it might definitely be worth doing if your baby’s health and development are being affected by lack of sleep.

What does a typical day look like in terms of wakeup, naps, bedtime?

We've been dealing with 2 hourly wakeups since pretty much the birth of our 9 month old. Recently though we tried stretching his wake windows, which also resulted in a later bedtime, and overnight he went down to one or two wakes (which is completely manageable after months of 5+).

It could be a developmental thing but one day last week he ended up having an earlier afternoon nap/earlier bedtime and he went back to 2 hourly wakes. The day after I put him back onto the new routine and he only woke twice.

@CurlyOrchid I completely understand. My 9 month old is the definition on high needs. I have strangers tell me how alert he is often.
He has cmpa and did have reflux so we assumed that’s why his sleep was so bad but no he just can’t switch off.
blackout blinds tried them, white noise - screams over it, co-sleeping - no difference, earlier bedtime/nap time - not tired enough so screams, later bedtime/nap times - screams.
just tonight I took him up after a relaxing bedtime routine 20-30 minutes before end of wake window. Put him next to me and stroked his hair. Can see he is tired, he starts waving, then rolling, then crawling. Roll him back, gently put a hand on him, arms waving again, smacking me in the face, scratching and then the crying starts. Nearly an hour later and it wasn’t until he got so tired he finally let me rock him to sleep.
He is so nosy the smallest noise or movement and he needs to see what’s going on. I can practically see the cogs constantly turning in his mind.
We have had a routine and watched wake windows since he was two months old and nothing works. Now at 9 months he is even worse (hence me writing this at 2:30 in the morning!) which yes is probably this age and a phase but we were already on our last dregs of energy. His dad currently has flu and I’m on antibiotics for horrific sinusitis. It’s agony.
He is full on in everything he does. Nappy changes since 4 months is like wrestling an alligator. When you try to roll him back - cries. If he sees his bottle or food and you don’t give it him fast enough he cries. Him and one other baby at nursery have to be fed a yogurt before lunch sometimes because it’s quick to feed and otherwise they lose it from frustration. They are fed amazingly!
I mean when he’s not tired he is very happy and smily and can be such a charmer. The ladies at nursery absolutely love him but with this bad night sleep and now fighting every nap time, me and his Dad are really really struggling. Yes all babies are hard work but unless you have a high needs baby you have no idea.

Still trying 2 figure out how to get a nearly 3 year old to sleep. Tried everything and nothing works. Im so far past exhaustion its not even funny. I think some day i will just collapse- im pregnant too so its even harder

@Catdogmouse1 oh my! You have my sympathies. Has her sleep always been like this? I can’t even imagine being pregnant and dealing with chronic sleep deprivation as well. I would collapse.
have you got any family close by that could help? Not really a solution but enough to give you some respite?

@CurlyOrchid yours sounds like my first, she'd never have stopped screaming so we didn't do it much. As she's got older we have really understood the stuff that loads of people swear by never works with her but then we've also realised she's not neurotypical so she just doesn't do the "normal" thing.

She DOES sleep through now though, it took 2.5-3 years but we got there, she's still a pain to get to sleep though at 4 and she doesn't need quiet as much sleep as other kids.

OP, DP mostly sleeps on the sofa so I can bedshare with more space. If that's not an option do a floor bed, cots are so hard to get a sleeping child into, ninja rolling away would probably be easier

We sleep trained using controlled crying and I'd highly recommend. I went in every 5 minutes, laid him back down and put my hand on his chest while I shushed three times then left. First night took 40 minutes then less and less after that. Took about four nights but then he slept through.

It's hard at first but it sounds as if it's in everyone's best interests.

I recommend following Just Chill Mama on Instagram. She's really helpful.

Mine is not at nursery but otherwise I could have basically written this exact post about her 😂

3 years? Yikes. Though I fear this’ll be it because as you say, the things people swear by just don’t work.
I work in a nursery and I know so many tips and tricks for this kind of thing but not one of them work on my child!