Breaking point. We can't cope with this anymore.

[MrsHTanner]

Our LO has been a terrible sleeper since day one. She wouldn't let me put her down in the hospital so I had to sit up with her all night.

She hit 11 months yesterday and we have had a handful of "good" nights since having her, but have never had a single night of her not waking.

We are at our wits end. She has progressively got worse recently and will scream and scream at us if we try and put her in her cot. We try to settle her in the cot by rubbing her tummy gently, caressing her cheek/head etc but she goes absolutely mental and pushes us away. We pick her up and she continues to scream at us, we put her on our bed or the floor and she screams more. She kicks her legs in frustration and claws at us if we try and comfort her.
We can distract her with a book and she'll stop instantly but then starts again as soon as the book(s) are finished or she continues to get frustrated during reading.

She doesn't eat solids properly, she will gag and vomit at almost every meal unless it's a 4m+ purée. We are in talks with a specialist but they just tell us what we already know, try and do.
Because she doesn't eat properly, she guzzles and guzzles milk. During the day it's not bad but at night she tries to use it as comfort too and it gets to the point where she will explode and vomit all over us.

Naps during the day are fine, 2 naps and we limit the time as recommended for her age. We follow sleepy cues and make sure not to let her get over tired.

The bedtime routine starts at 6/6:30pm. We either have her asleep in her cot by 7:30pm or like last night, spend 3hrs40m trying to achieve that.
If she goes down "easy" we then experience hell and can spend 3-4 hours from around midnight doing the same.

She doesn't have allergies, she had tongue tie but that was snipped at 3m and hasn't grown back.
She has never been a huggable baby, she doesn't like anyone grabbing her hands and will only allow touch when she touches first. This makes comforting her almost impossible.

She cannot and will not self soothe.
She will not accept being put in her cot drowsy.
She screams so much at us, to a point where she will almost vomit if we don't intervene.
We've tried just letting her play in a dim room but after a short while she will go mental again because she is tired.

We have limited screen time (morning), we keep an eye on sleepy cues, we read to her, dim the lights, have red lights, give her warm baths, tried bedtime porridge, tried comforters, teddies, dummies (vomited), earlier bedtimes, later bedtimes, cuddling her to sleep, waiting with her in our arms for up to 20 minutes, putting her to bed straight away, walking around the house with her until our arms cant take it anymore, she won't co-sleep, she will sleep in her pram for max 1hr. We have even tried letting her cry it out, something I really didn't want to do but she gets more worked up and will not stop screaming.
She doesn't want us, she doesn't want to go to bed, she doesn't want to play, sometimes doesn't want to feed or vomits because she's had too much.

WHAT ELSE DO WE DO???

We have tried everything we can think of, she is completely breaking us to a point that we feel we just don't want her anymore. It's so awful to say that but we can't keep doing this.

She is not teething, she's not unwell, she does not have allergies.
We have stuck to routines in the day and bedtime for months as suggested by our HV. NOTHING STICKS.

PLEASE, PLEASE give any advice you can. We feel so alone.
I have grown up around lots of babies (big family) and I have never seen anything as bad as this.

I can hear the desperation in your message, and appreciate how awful this is.

My second boy was an awful sleeper, from about 5 months til he was 4. He had a period of 6 months where he woke up every 45 minutes through that night, and another period where he had night terrors at 12.30/1am every night, and another period where he woke at 5am to start the day. That was the one that nearly broke me, it was the worst episode of my life.

My doctor reckoned (in hindsight) it was probably triggered by him starting walking really early, at 7 months. I don't know, my other children were textbook in their sleeping patterns. One thing that did work for us for teaching him to self-settle was the 'no cry sleep solution' book, essentially a gradual withdrawal method. We also put him into a double bed when he was 2 and when he woke during the night we would climb in and soothe him there so at least we were getting some rest too. We saw a homeopath, and that really did make a difference - not a popular view on MN but we were so desperate.

I have no particular advice, these were things that worked for us, but just wanted to say you're not alone X. I would also say to look after yourself and your partner and try to be kind to each other, it's really difficult when you're both so tired.

If it's any help at all, I promise this will pass. (And our nightmare child is now a big hairy 16yo we can't scrape out of bed in the mornings)

Goodness that sounds really awful I’m so sorry for u.
our DD had split nights as a toddler it was horrendous. She did better kept up a bit later with a bedtime between 9-11 then more likely to sleep through till 6 or 7. It’s crap when your young child needs less sleep than you do! And absolutely no napping after about 230/3pm. It sounds cruel but meant we could all get those core hours of sleep. She was more miserable with the split night and being awake from ie 0000-3 or 4am.

we also shared the nights so we each got more sleep but that was really tricky. To be honest this derailed my dh (who was the stay at home dad) getting back to work and I hate to say it but I have to be honest, you know how rubbish it is, but I don’t think he’s really recovered from those years yet. She’s now 11. And it wasn’t our parenting our younger child responded to the various strategies we tried and could always be helped to sleep in a good habit even if she had a few rough nights when going through different stages. I feel for you.

‘Compressed sleep’ btw is one of things advised for adults with insomnia. It’s about only trying to sleep, and being in bed, when you are actually exhausted and have a likely prospect of sleeping. Then trying to extend the time in bed once you have a better association of sleep and bed.

Our eldest was a nightmare with sleep. In her case, it was caused by sleep apnoea due to overlarg3 tonsils and adenoids. This also meant she gagged on solids and could only way mush. Could you get that checked just in case?

Go to your GP. I believe that for extreme sleep issues they can prescribe melatonin. It takes time though, so get th ball rolling.