Hi,
We have a 10 month old who has never been a good sleeper and we are now approaching the edge of our sanity having seemingly tried everything and everyone.
He was diagnosed as having reflux soon after birth which could explain the poor sleep in the first few months of life. We were given medication and this stage has now passed. We weaned him at 6 months, although that didn't make a marked difference to his sleep patterns.
We subsequently employed a sleep trainer who initially had good results - his morning and afternoon naps became regularised and we progressed from rocking/singing lullabies/doing everything possible to get him to sleep at night to simply placing him in his cot and walking out of the room. Even at this stage, he was not sleeping through the night and would wake 2-3 times. Sometimes it would be a simple case of putting on some white noise (we use it when we put him down in the evening) and placing our hand on his leg; at other times, we might be treated to a 1-2 hour (and occasionally longer) fussing/crying fit where nothing works...until exhaustion takes over and he falls asleep. We never really liked the idea of controlled crying, but eventually tried it - it didn't work.
Of late, there's been a significant regression. We can no longer walk out of the room at 7pm after putting him down as he continues to fuss/cry/call out. He usually has two naps a day - in the morning at around 9.30am for an hour or so and in the afternoon, after lunch at around 1.30pm for another hour or so. These naps are not consistent, so on some days he may sleep for 1-2 hours; on other days we might be lucky to scrape 20 mins. Our evening routine is usually dinner (5pm), boob feed (startingbetween 6pm and 6.15pm), bath (6.30pm) and in cot by 7pm. He has slept in his own room since the age of around 4.5 months.
We've tried giving him a drink of water in the middle of the night when we wakes, but he's not one to take it much and tends to fight an attempt.
Just for completeness and in case anyone is wondering, we've got every sleep book and (it feels like) tried just about every sleep technique, including from the hard core (cry it out) to a more gentle approach such as gradual withdrawal.
Any tips, guidance etc most gratefully received!