Losing my mind with 11 month old

[JadeT2]

My 11 month old has gone from sleeping 7-7 pretty much every night in her cot to becoming some kind of fucking nightmare.

She's taking up to an hour to fall asleep and will no longer go to sleep by herself. She has to feed (bottle) to sleep or be rocked and sung to. If she wakes up following this I used to be able to stick her dummy back in and crack on with my evening. Now she point blank refuses to go back to sleep unless I'm holding her and will continuously wake through the night. If I put her down again she screams until she's sick and stands at the cot banging the bars.

We have resorted to having to bring her in with us, sometimes as early as 9pm, meaning I literally have no break from her (still on maternity) all day and I am starting to lose my mind. I did suggest selling her on eBay earlier but my husband said we probs wouldn't get enough

She will scream and scream unless I have physically picked her up. I can't even stand next to her cot holding her over or through the bars so I don't even know how I could attempt the slow retreat type approach to "sleep training".

Is this some sort of stage (it's been about 3 weeks now) or is this going to my life now? Cosleeping isn't really a long term solution for us as my husband and I are shift workers so our alarms will wake her up anyway when I return to work next month.

If anyone has any solution please help!

And another thing, for those against a crying it out phase. You have to consider that the child will cry anyway, many hours, even with comfort. DS used to cry and cry so much even when we were holding him, or pushing him in the pushchair.

If you add up all the hours that he cried even when we were holding him, you would probably find that letting him cry for a few hours means that there will be much fewer hours of crying just after a few days.

My DS is 17 months old and if everything is ok is a good sleeper and will sleep 12-14 hours a night. However, there's so much going on for them that it's rare that everything is ok [sob] [sob]

I've also never done sleep training because I don't believe my DS is old enough to wake himself up on purpose to get my attention. I also know (because the walls are paper thin) that he's perfectly able to self settle if nothing's wrong. I often hear him wake up and grumble for a bit and then go back to sleep but if he's up and crying then I go in to him.

I agree about maybe being over tired? Mine still had two naps during the day at 11 months, one short and one long. Now he's a bit older he can only have half an hour unless I want bedtime to be 9pm, but I discovered yesterday that he still needs that nap... he was up at 7.30, was in nursery till 1. He was shattered when I collected him but I distracted him from napping for selfish reasons and put him to bed at 7pm expecting him to sleep right through like he did the night before... but he was definitely over tired and woke every three hours!

I could have written your post. Unfortunately DD is also now sick so I don't feel I can leave her to cry (she often coughs if she cries, and too much coughing leads to vomiting at the moment). It's tough because not even co-sleeping works with ours and she won't be rocked to sleep by me - only DH's arms will do! I'm dreading him telling me he's off out for the evening as I expect I'll need to spend it driving a pram around our living room in the dark.

So no advice, sorry, but just to let you know you're not the only one! Once she's well again I probably will leave her to cry. She responded very well to sleep training the first time round but now she's got the hang of saying 'Mama' it might be a bit more gut-wrenching this time around.

I have read that there is a sleep regression around the 12-month mark so let's fucking pray hope it's temporary for all of our sakes!

Thanks for all the responses, it's always nice to just have someone on the same position to share stories with!

The past two nights she's gone down a lot better by 7pm but has still woken at about 12am when I've just brought her into bed with me - I'm currently 13 weeks pregnant and can't be arsed to try to settle her for an hour right now as I'm just slightly more tired than usual! She did however wake up again in bed with me then at 3am and was wide awake until 5am trying to poke me and laughing

I am actually very lucky to have family around me but I suppose my mistake is when I go to see them with the baby I don't leave her there. I spend most weekends visiting my parents down the road but we just go out for coffee or for a walk so I don't ever really have time to myself. My parents have 9 grandchildren and spend half the time they're not at work (both teachers) babysitting so I feel a bit guilty adding to it. I know they would be happy to have her for me though.

And then because of my husband's working hours and having his daughter half the week I don't feel like I can encroach upon their time together too much. He does three school runs a week then often works shifts of 2pm until 2am or 6am until 6pm. He always offers to stay up with her or try to settle her but I always wake up when I hear her anyway and I get more sleep than him in general so I just take the brunt of it!

I start back to work next week so I think that will probably help my sanity!

Could she be hungry?

My 11 month old DS went through a phase of waking in the night crying and also being awake for 1-2 hours in the middle of the night. I was pulling my hair out but posted on this board and someone suggested my DS might be going through a growth spurt, especially with him just learning to walk, and so I started offering more food during the day and also a banana and/or some porridge before bed (along with his 8oz bottle!) and touch wood he has been much better 😊

I also think your DD might be overtired and they have so much going on - teeth, growth spurt, separation anxiety - that their little brains must be on overdrive!

Really shocked at the idea of shutting a baby in their room and leaving them there crying without any comfort. Would these people leave another loved one, their mum or DH, sobbing in a room and just walk away?

I think I may try upping the food through the day. If anything she's been going off food lately though but I shall persevere.

She had her front 8 teeth by 9 months so appears to actually be taking a bit of a break from teething for once! Teething has never been too big an issue for us as her first one came through at 2 months and they don't seem to have bothered her as much as some babies!

Wow 8 teeth already!!!

In response to those advocating CIO / CC. Yes, babies cry if being sleep trained in other ways. BUT there is a huge difference in the stress levels of a baby left to cry on its own and a baby crying whilst its parents are there reassuring it.

My daughter used to do this around the same age, standing in her cot and making herself sick putting her fingers down her throat. It was really very annoying and unpleasant but it did get easier and a firm approach leaving them gradually to cry it out works best in my opinion.

My DD is now a very happy 6 year old and sleeps every night with no problems at all. You brought back a few happy memories though..! 😝

Yup mine had 8 teeth by that age too and I'm pretty sure she has incisors and molars coming through now - I wouldn't be surprised if we had another 4 (!) teeth in the next couple of months. Bonjela and Weleda teething powder does help to calm her, if not totally solve the problem. Hopefully you get some better sleep tonight!