And here we are again...

[BlingLoving]

...9pm and I am in ds' room while he doesn't sleep. He was a terrible sleeper since birth but slowly things have got better. But any little thing causes massive set backs so here we are, post being sick, with ds refusing to sleep. And the later he finally sleeps, the more disrupted our night.

I know a lot of it is that because he has been unwell and sleeping badly, his day time nap has been a little all over the place. But it's a vicious circle and we struggle to get it right.

Not sure why I am posting really. I guess just to talk to people who've been there, and understand!

I just wanted to post the exact same subject line...so you are definitely not alone...

DC2 slept exclusively on me for the first 10 weeks, and I then super gradually with absolutely no tears involved got her to happily fall asleep by herself, nap well etc and everything was just fine....as we used CC with Dc1, I was really happy that this time we got there by what seemed to be a very natural process from sleeping on me to sleeping in her cot. That was 2 months ago (she is 6 mo now) Since then Dc2 has had one cold after the other and needless to say sleep went to pots with currently waking up every hour at night....I am now back to having to rock her to sleep and just spent 45 minutes to do so...very sad!

In the few minutes where I do not despair i have come up with the strategy to crack this vicious circle that you mentioned. i will first make sure that she gets as much sleep as necessary so that she is not overtired anymore, and i will then tackle all these sleep associations that we have nicely introduced again in the past weeks....

It just makes me sad that after 6 months I am still running around completely sleep deprived and like a Zombie....although my DC2 was already able to sleep so nicely...but then again I should know better as DC1 showed me that someday they will all sleep and forgotten are those terrible nights.

Wishing you good luck Bling!!! Hope it all gets better soon!

Thanks sanne. Ds is nearly 2! We should be past this now. It's exhausting. I have come in from work tonight and so far it's just screaming. We are doing some cc from today - going in every 5 minutes then in increments - but it's still exhausting.

Hope you are having a better time of it tonight.

We did CC with DC1 (now 2.3) when he was only 6 mo after months of no sleep longer than 45 minutes and after everything else failed and we felt that we were all going mad due to sleep deprivation. Still feel very guilty about it as I never thought I would use CC with my children. but....DC actually did not cry as much as expected and slept through by the 2nd night. He has been a very good sleeper since and we nevervhad to do it again (and we obviously provide lots of comfort etc during the nights when he is unwell, but he is ok to sleep well afterwards again) Now the fact that i am not using CC with my DC2 tells you that I am still not a great fan of CC however it does work for some children. my DC1 is a cheerful and well rested/tantrum- less toddler and in hindsight I think that doing CC was better for my son than continuous lack of sleep for him as well as the rest of the family. Good luck!

Ps-we had another crap night with Dc2 though but im sure this will pass so im trying not to get too upset about it and a long walk in this cold weather will surely keep me awake.....

Just realised you obviously posted your message last night. How did it go???

Hi again Sanne. It's going terribly. I just posted a long thread in development. He's still refusing to go to sleep AND he's waking up at night and not going back to sleep. We're all exhausted. I think it's linked to me going back to work recently but I don't know what to do. The more tired he gets the worse it gets too.

We've tried leaving him to cry but he just stays awake until eventually we go in he falls asleep within seconds (I know, CC is pointless if you don't commit to it properly but I can't commit when he's screaming then stopping screaming to whimper, "mummy" over and over again and I suspect the problem is insecurity).