17 month old: will sleep counselling help or should we just get on with it?

[farandaway]

I have 17 month old twin girls, plus a 4 year old boy. One of the twins - M - has always been a dreadful sleeper. At 3 months we separated the girls so that M wouldn't disturb the other one (L), and L has pretty much slept through since then. For a period at about 10 months, M slept through and we moved the girls back together but then they got colds etc. etc, and we had to separate them again. Occasionally now M will sleep through but never consistently and there seems to be no obvious reason for why she does.

She wakes at night and I feed her back to sleep. Sometimes she settles back to sleep. Often she doesn't and we can be up for 2 hours, 3 hours or the rest of the night with her. I feel like we've tried everything. She doesn't respond well to any sort of CC technique as that just increases her tension and then there's no hope of her sleeping. Sometimes I sit by her cot and she holds my hand - that can work but not always. Sometimes I stand by the door of the room and ssssh until she settles but that doesn't always work. Sometimes I go in and out of the room telling her to lie down and go to sleep and that can work but not always (that's normally how we get her to sleep in the evening). If she's not slept after 2 hours or more then we bring her down and get her to sleep in the buggy (which is where she has her midday nap) - but last night even that didn't work.

I am going out of my mind with tiredness. It's affecting my ability to parent my other children and I can feel I'm on the edge of depression. I try to shoulder the burden of it, but my partner is a poor sleeper and if I'm up with her he generally doesn't sleep well. I'm beginning to worry about his ability to hold down his job. Also, we have to sleep downstairs on the sofa bed as M is in our room. We are desperate to move the girls in together and get our bedroom back, but that feels like a long long way away.

My question is, should we turn to a sleep counsellor (I am willing to pay any amount of money at this stage), or should we accept that we have a child who doesn't sleep and grin and bear it until she's an age where we can reason with/bribe her (that's basically what my HV said). From what I've read, most sleep counsellors use a form of CC or gradual withdrawal and I really can't see those working with M. I feel like we've tried them although perhaps not as strictly/properly as we would if we had somebody supporting us...? I would really appreciate advice. Be gentle on me, I'm having a very tough time.

Thanks.

I don't think you can buy a magic wand. It might be worth seeing what your local children's centre offers. I went a very good session sleep with my DH and there were 15 families with children over the age of two who aren't sleeping. It helped us to know what are realistic expectations. For example some people expect their children to need more sleep than they really do.

Councelling may help you as a couple to agree on a plan of action and help your marriage. However I don't think it will make M sleep through the night. Have you considered sleeping in the same room as M as it would reduce your tireness as you would not be having to go upstairs in the night. It would also stop you from distrubing your DH by returning to the sofabed.

The solution dh and I is that we take it in turns to sleep in our Dd room and the other person gets a full time nightsleep.

Is it possible she's getting molars at the mo'. My DS is not the sleeping kind but at 17 months he got 4 molars through at the same time.

Oh farandaway I really feel for you. First off, of course you shouldn't just accept that you have a child who won't sleep! I can only talk from my own experience but I've recently gone through similar.

DS2 , 10mo, terrible sleeper, up x5 night. We dithered trying a bit of this, bit of that but never really committed to anything and his sleep just got worse and worse. We decided in desperation to pay for sleep counselling through Millpond (also see book) as we needed the discipline of a monitored programme and someone to reassure us when it was hard. I think we could have followed any number of methods from a book succesfully but we needed the structure and the reassurance that it was tailored specifically for us to enable us to see it through (sleep training is hard!). We felt compelled to do it wholeheartedly as we had to keep a diary and speak to our sleep therapist weekly ( there would be explaining to do if we chickended out!).

She adjusted the programme when DS was teething and ill so it didn't feel insurmountable. We didn't feel able to do CC so we tried gradual retreat and reduced BF and by week 4, DS was sleeping through until 430am and then going straight back to sleep after a 2 min BF. He's just been ill, so we had to temporarily abandon - re-starting tonight so will keep you posted.

I just wanted to encourage you not to put up with what sounds like a very difficult situation - you really can do something about this! Also, feeding M to sleep may be at the root of the problem?

I second what saladspinner said - I believe there is always a solution.

Can I firstly ask what her daytime routine looks like at the moment? When does she wake up, when does she nap and how long for & when does she go to bed???

I always ask this question b/c its so relevant to night time sleeping. If a little one gets too much sleep in the day, or nap is too close to bedtime, they might not sleep for so long at night. Similarly if they don't get enough sleep in the day, this can cause them to be overtired at night & wake frequently.

To me, this bit of your post really stands out:
'Sometimes I sit by her cot and she holds my hand - that can work but not always. Sometimes I stand by the door of the room and ssssh until she settles but that doesn't always work. Sometimes I go in and out of the room telling her to lie down and go to sleep and that can work but not always (that's normally how we get her to sleep in the evening).'

It sounds like you are trying everything possible to get her to sleep (which I completely understand in times of desperation) however it might be less confusing for her to try a single and consistent approach. I also agree with saladspinner re the feeding to sleep - this may be part of the reason for her NW's, as might the putting her to sleep in the buggy in the evenings. If this is how she has grown accustomed to going off to sleep, then when she wakes in the night she isn't where she was when she fell asleep IYSWIM? So she may be upset/confused, and then she will need the same kind of help to go to sleep again, YK?

I think when a child has not been used to sleeping independently, CC is pretty tough going, so I would be inclined to try a more gentle approach eg GW, which you will ALL feel more comfortable with. As for whether to use a sleep counsellor, I've not used one myself so couldn't say for sure whether it would help or not. They are likely to use similar techniques to the textbooks, however, like pp said it gives you the structure/support. Once you make the tough decision to start on any form of sleep training its important to see it through or its all been for nothing, so if you think you will struggle to find the determination to stick with it (bearing in mind it may take several weeks) without some external support then I would definitely say go for it.

(((hugs)))

HTH.xx