no idea where to start

[Titsalinabumsquash]

DD is 13 months and is permanently superglued to me unless I'm at work for 2 hrs in the evening where she swaps to DP.

She he's never slept without being on someone and if that someone is me (99%) of the time she is feeding.

I would like to start getting her to sleep in her cot which is currently side carred to our bed or to at least be able to put her down and move freely around the house on the evening, I'd like to be able to spend some time with DP and maybe even try and locate our sex life!

The problem is, I have nothing to start from, it's not like she falls asleep on one of us at the same time every night, sometimes it's 7pm some times it's not until 9.39-10.00.
She has nothing in the way of routine at all (naps/food/play/wake ups etc) and I don't know where to begin.
We can't start a nightly bath because I'm working at that sort of time and DP is trying to eat dinner, deal with 3 other children (including a toddler) and supervise DS1's long medical routine, it just wouldn't work.

I'm not a fan of CIO at all.
Does anyone have any ideas to make life a bit easier and to take steps towards a baby that sleeps in her cot without a boob in her mouth.

I feel like after 3 children who all slept ok and transitioned to a cot fairly easily I've gone and screwed this one right up.

So if you have 3 other children then your life is probably already routine to a degree:

• From getting up until going to school could be called "early morning"
• Finishing the school run marks the start of your "morning" with baby
• Nursery run (?) and/or lunchtime marks the end of "morning" and the start of "afternoon"
• School run marks the end of your "afternoon" with baby
• After dinner marks the start of "evening"
• Then comes bedtime followed by night time.

So you probably already have some structure to your day. Key with a baby (I also have 4 children) is fitting in their routine into the already established family routine.

So start by getting baby up in the morning at a reasonably ridged time, alongside the rest of the family. My older children used to wake at 7am, so I'd wake baby at 7.30am to give me enough time to get the other breakfast before baby was up.

Then on from this, set a regular bedtime. It doesn't have to be exacting to the minute, but maybe an hour window. Say aim for baby being asleep between 7pm-8pm at night.

Depending on if baby is having one nap a day or two, mine have always napped:

• 9.30 to 11.00 then 1.00 to 3.00 if two naps
• 12.00 to 3.00 if one nap

These timings, as you'll note, are based entirely around school runs, because baby has to fit in with family life.

Once you have established a routine of sorts, you can also develop settling techniques for settling to sleep in the cot.

Can you develop a routine for her? Is there a reason why she doesn't have one so far? I think that might be the best starting point, then when she has a consistent bed time and nap time, with associations like dark room, story, etc, you can start trying to put her in the cot? I don't think it will be easy, DS was similar when he was tiny, we started to establish a routine and try to persuade him to sleep in his cot around 6 months and now at 14 months it's still really variable, but at least he does sometimes!

She doesn't have a routine because she's always been such a content baby when she's on me that we've just always let her be carried around and cuddled which is what she wants to do.
She won't take a dummy/bottle and she's never taken to a comforter.
She was prem and she's got a few slight delays, she doesn't eat solid food (this is being investigated)

She is so varied with sleeping sometimes she sleeps all day and night and sometimes she doesn't sleep for more than an hour for days on end.

Meal times are in a routine and the other children have a steady bed time routine. I need to work from there I think. I have no idea how though.