If anyone can give me some good advice I would be extremely gratefully.
My 2nd child has been a terrible sleeper from the off. She woke up every night up until 10 mths, and then out of the blue started sleeping through every night. It lasted for 2 blissful months, but then she went back to waking up and we've been in that situation ever since.
She has always been a bad teether, which is what I think started the whole thing off, but now (at 17 mths) it seems to be part habit, part fear of being left on her own. She also got a very bad flu at Xmas and has had a series of colds ever since, so she hasn't been 100% well for a couple of mths either.
I went back off maternity leave after a year, and up until that tried very hard to ensure that she always went back into her own bed. However, I got so tired I couldn't function, so we have now got into the bad habit of bringing her into our bed every night when she wakens. I know - the worst possible thing to do, but my work was starting to become affected by my tiredness.
I have tried to do some sleep training with her, but it's not easy. We have made some progress in that she will now go into her cot awake at night, but you have to stay in the room until she's asleep as she keeps opening her eyes in a panic to check you're still there. Sometimes I let her cry it out a little, but she can get distraught to the point of vomiting.
She's now only sleeping in her own bed for about 4 hours before she wakes up. Even if we don't bring her into our bed and settle her back to sleep, she keeps waking every 15 mins or so and eventually we cave in. She used to then sleep well in our bed, but now she's even waking up 3 or 4 times a night with us screaming.
I love her, but I'm exhausted. I have read the sleep books, but I can't really suss out why she's waking up all the time, even when sleeping with us. Her naps have also started to shorten to 1.5 hrs max. We put her to bed a around 7:30, and I'm trialling giving her an even earlier bedtime to see what happens.
Has anyone else had this and managed to hit on a good solution? My older son has always been a great sleeper, so I'm not sure what we've done so wrong this time around. We give her a bedtime routine, but she's quite hyper even when reading a book and never seems to wind down into that quiet phase.