Sorry for the long post, but I'm at my wits end!
DD has never been a good sleeper (we can count on one hand the amount of times she has STTN), but over the past few months, we've been willing to try anything to get her sleeping before the new arrival. We've always laid with her at bedtime, which can take anywhere up to an hour, and she still wakes regularly during the night. A good night would see her waking at 12/1am for the first time - followed by more frequent wakings, unless we got into bed with her (and then she'd fidget all night!). Spoke to the HV who advised gradual retreat, so for 2 weeks I moved a chair slowly out of the room...until I got stuck at the threshold as she wanted to still see me as she fell asleep! This did nothing to help the night wakings BTW. Spoke to the HV again, who told me to go back and start again?!?
Decided on a new approach and bought a reward chart. It worked!! We started seeing her sleep until 3/4am, and even had a 4:50am once. But it was unfortunately short lived, and she lost interest, despite the bribe promise of a new toy if she stayed in her bed all night.
So here we are now, the last 2 nights she has been awake before 10, will go back to sleep for a while, then refuses to unless one of us gets into bed with her, or she comes in with us. She has us wrapped around her little finger and I'm soooo tired! Please please, if someone can give me some advise on what to do next, I would be most grateful! Sorry if I've missed anything out, we'll blame it on baby brain/sleep deprivation. Thanks x