10 month old wakes often.

[Butterpuff]

I'm getting exhausted. My little girl has never been much of a sleeper but it's getting worse.
She goes to sleep easily with a feed around 8pm. (Breastfed) sleeps for about 1.5 hours then wakes screaming. Either a quick feed or about half an hour's rocking puts her back to sleep. An hour later she is awake again and this continues until 6am when she rises for the day.

She takes a nap around 9.30 of half an hour and sometimes another half hour at 3.30pm.

She has milk when she wakes, porridge at 7. Milk for nap at 9. Sandwich and yoghurt for lunch. Milk for afternoon nap then 6.30 dinner with us.

I'm running on around 6 hours broken sleep a night and am returning to work soon. I'm also worried that she is starting to look tired which she never used to.

Has anyone any advice on how to help us both. Thanks.

I wonder if she is teething. Do you co sleep? I found this a really good way to maximise the amount of sleep we all got - and minimise the effort for me when they did wake.

Even a cot in the same room or near the bed can make a huge difference - getting up and going to a different room isn't something I could cope with, ever!

Forgive if you have already tried this

She was in her cot in our room until a couple of weeks ago. We had a side crib until she grew out of it so she is used to being close to us. The sleep was getting worse before the move and we are enjoying having our room and our space back. I think DH would resist moving her back in.

I think DH would resist moving her back in

By all means wait it out until your DH sees how exhausted you are by having to get up and go into another room all through the night. You hopefully have at least one of the weekend nights 'off' when DH does most of the settling. Once back at work it is reasonable that you will equally share night duties then.

I would imagine that when his sleep is as disturbed as yours, he'll me much less resistant to the idea of having baby's cot in your room. This would save a lot of your sanity.

You may well need to do some form of gradual withdrawal to sort this, along with night weaning. This means settling baby in the cot and staying until asleep. Unless you fancy sitting on a chair in another room for a few hours at every wake up doing this, being able to settle whilst still lying in your bed (leaning into the cot next to you) with your duvet is a million times easier.

She takes a nap around 9.30 of half an hour and sometimes another half hour at 3.30pm

If she was getting 12 hours sleep a night that wouldn't be enough daytime sleep. As it is she is having far less broken sleep at night, so I'd be expecting two 2h naps at least. This will be adding to your problem.

If baby cannot settle to sleep though, this is probably all part of the same problem.

I would recommend settling baby to sleep only in her cot. If the cot is next to your bed you can lie right next to her and do all that is needed to reassure through the tears - shushing, patting, stroking, tickling - whatever it takes but the point is you stay right there reassuring her but not picking her up, she goes to sleep in her cot. Anytime she sits up, you lie her back down. Anytime she stands up, you lie her back down. A firm hand on her chest/back often helps a wriggly baby.

She will cry, but if you are consistent and stay there reassuring until she is asleep, she will get there in the end. Then gradually over time, you reduce the amount of reassurance needed to go to sleep independently in her cot.