Please come and hold my hand

[ComradeJing]

I have reached the end of my tether with my perfect, affectionate, beautiful DD. She is 10 months and has been a bad sleep her whole life. After a month of so of sleep training it all went to pot when we went on holiday and then we got stuck in horrible separation anxiety. She is now sleep refusing for HOURS at bed time. Cries if I don't hold her hand and then starts to giggle and play once she calms down. It sends me bonkers and I get so frustrated that I have had to leave the room. I've never left her for longer than a couple of minutes.

I know it sounds like such a tiny thing to get frustrated about. Due to Dh working away I have done absolutely ALL of her sleeps for her entire life. She won't sleep for anyone else without 45 minutes of sobbing and it is very draining and upsetting for all involved.

Tonight I walked out of the room for 2 minutes then went back and tried again to get her to sleep for another 20 minutes. I then walked out of the room again and left her for 5 minutes. I went back in and tried for another 20 minutes to get her down. It was 9pm by this time and I'd been trying to get her to sleep for about 2 hours. I then walked out again and she stopped crying after 10 minutes and fell asleep.

So I've done CIO/CC. Something I swore I would never, ever do. I feel absolutely terrible and heartsick. My poor little girl. Have I broken her ability to trust me? I know this sounds stupid and melodramatic.

On the other hand, I'm just so, so glad she is asleep and hasn't woken up again (yes I did go check on her and she is fine).

Please come and hold my hand and tell me she isn't broken and that she will be fine and still love me tomorrow. Jesus, this is so far the worst night I've had as a parent. :(

It is so hard. You do what you have to do to cope and your dd will be fine. My 10 month is the same and I just keep thinking in another year I'll at least be able to reason with her. Another year!

Good god, woman! I am sure that when your DD wakes up in the morning, she will be absolutely fine. In fact, she may even be better than usual because she had more sleep.

It is so, so very hard. I can't believe you called it "a tiny thing" to get upset about. Putting a child to bed for hours every night - a tiny thing? It would certainly do my brain and body in. There are limits, really. It is not a good idea to ignore your children's emotional needs and control cry them at 3 weeks or even 3 months, but ignoring mummy's emotional and physical needs is also wrong and downright misogynist. In my opinion, the camp that says that a woman must never ever ever let the child to cry even for two seconds even if she is dropping dead with exhaustion and sleep deprivation is just as bad as the camp that says that you should let newborns cry at the bottom of the garden. And anyway, very often there is no way to prevent your baby from crying - they often scream no matter what you do! So let us not beat ourselves up for not being "perfect mothers." It is really the same as trying to diet yourself into the airbrushed image of a model from a glossy rag.

All I have to say is - well done! It's not pleasant, but I hope it gets better for you now. Get a cup of tea and relax while it lasts!

MollyintheMoon, I am in exactly the same situation now. But I am not so optimistic about reasoning in a year's time. There are too many threads about non-sleeping 5-year olds here for my comfort . . . :(

Well done sounds like you are doing a great job - enjoy this time and relax - when she wakes up happy you will be kicking yourself if you spent it worrying - she feels safe and like her mummy loves her and she is right.

You're fine, she's fine. There is nothing to feel guilty about.

Enjoy your time now she's asleep. Relax.

Comrade I've been there with DS. It's so exhausting. I feed him to sleep now but it wasn't always that easy, and I remember how frustrated I'd get with him :(

This might make you feel better.

Please try not to beat yourself up.

Once she finally fell asleep she was ok ish. She used to sleep through from about 9pm (or two hours from when she fell asleep) to 7am which was great. It was the first two hours from bed time that killed me. She was awake every 10 to 20 minutes and I went up and down out damn stairs like a yoyo. So I cant even claim I was too exhausted to cope. Just too frustrated to spend another night bloody patting her or doing any of the other things that eventually got her to sleep.

She's fine this morning :o absolutely fine and I was worrying about nothing.

Thank you all so, so much.

Count I remember you from the sleep nightmares thread. Hope your ds is better at sleeping now.