Has anyone hired a maternity nurse/nanny/sleep expert to help with a sleep problem?

[thecattleareALOHing]

And did it work? Seriously considering it to help with dd who is 10months and getting worse and worse and worse. Still up now. And last night woke at 4am, wide awake and wanting to play. And she won't nap in her cot or in a bed during the day either. She's a wonderful baby. Sunny, social, physically lively...but the lack of sleep is KILLING me.

Suzywong did, and I think I have some notes on it(I talked to her for a sleep article).

I need help! The monster is still up! If she falls asleep before 8pm she treats it as a nap, we've discovered and wakes an hour later, fully refreshed and raring to go
aaaargh!
(yes, and tomorrow she will just have to wail between 6pm and 8pm because a feed makes her sleep)
She was so good when tiny, but it is definitely getting worse.

oh, Aloha, that's the last thing you need after your ds (if I remember correctly...?) Must be in the genes somewhere...my dad would call it "having the night-nadgers".

can't you phone Gina ?

I would give my right arm to have Gina come and bully my baby to sleep! I think I need someone to help. Feel too knackered and weak to contemplate a Plan Of Action.

Yes, and dh's genes clearly don't help. Dd1 (my stepdaughter) apparently didn't sleep through until she was one, and that took some intervention as well. Oh hell.

OK, SW saw Andrea Grace. Sounds as if she was useful but not omniscient.

Ds sleeps wonderfully now. In fact not sure what is worse - his complete non-sleep for the first eight months - waking every 20minutes, alternated with waking between 1am and 4am - or dd's slow drip-drip sleep deprivation torture. And she gave me hope! I can take anything but the hope, I tell you.

did ms Grace actually come Into Her Home and Take Charge?

can you just ignore her? (though I've never been able to leave ds holler more than 10 mins...

have you tried the monotonous bum-patting when she wakes early?

I do remember with DD2 - DD1 was sheer hell till four or five months and then became a total blissful 12-hour girl. And in many ways still is. Whereas DD2 just did nOT get the hang, for ages and ages and AGES...I have to say she is so adorable, though. Utterly wonderful.

Gather she came in and observed but did not Take Charge. Can you get someone as a freebie for an article?

She gets absolutely hysterical Dinny - really beside herself and would either try to climb out of her cot (which she hates so rarely goes in) or would crawl off the edge of the bed and hurt herself.
Nightmare.
Patting does sod all.

hmmm....freebie for article...what a good idea...maybe Junior P&B? Or The Telegraph or something?

But who? Who?

I am sure the collected wisdom of MN could provide the required advise Aloha?

Where's Cod when you need her?

Junior P'n'B due for another sleep piece, I reckon - that was my one, but a while ago now (when DD2 was little). Guardian Parenting, if you go for a relentlessly personal angle?

They have tried, but tbh I suspect everyone thinks I am being Feeble and Not Trying the suggestions.

Forgotten where she usually sleeps?

ds sounds same and he's 15 months. goes crazy unless in bed with us (and dh is SO fed up with sharing with him). I'm not, I love it

But are they right? Are you Feeble and Not Trying Hard Enough?

So have I

She started to refuse her cot in most insistent and hysterical manner (after previously going down awake in the approved manner). She also woke a lot.
So we started to get her off to sleep by getting her dozy and/or fast asleep after her feed downstairs then taking her up to our bed or my stepdaughter's big bed, and staying with her while she went off.
She would often sleep quite well, but when she woke I'd feed her in bed with me and she'd go to sleep with me. Not ideal, but moving her woke her up and she'd get hysterical.
That's not working so well any more. She is now staying awake in the evenings, refusing to sleep, and - last night - woke in the small hours awake, ready to play, crawling, pulling herself to standing on the headboard and generally being full of beans. Dh took her off and she eventually - more than an hour later - went back to sleep. We are SHATTERED.

Trouble is Dinny, she is showing signs of not sleeping even in bed with us. And she is going down later and later, so dh and I can't even eat dinner together.

does she have a sleeping bag?

And naps, feeds, all that stuff, in the day?

I was happy to let ds cry because he was just complaining - dd is really hysterical. Left her to cry herself to sleep for a nap a couple of months ago, and she did go to sleep - for about 20 minutes - but she was collapsed in her cot, face pressed against the bars, covered in tears, and woke up in the same distressed state Find that too hard to do.