So, a typical night with ds 11 months old has looked like this : bed at 6:30, no problem. 9pm, makes some noises, settles himself. 1ish, wakes up, starts to cry, mum or dad go in and try to settle him. Crying/fussing/settling continues 1-2hrs. Mum shoves dad awake, mum & dad have a hissed argument about what to do. Calpol and watered down formula are bunged at ds. Eventually, possibly just through the passage of time, ds goes back to sleep. It's often about 2:30-3am by his point. 4:15am, ds wakes again. Exhausted mum bungs him some of his breakfast milk and he goes back to sleep. 5:45, ds wakes again, mum gives in and calls it morning.
This has been what's happened most nights for several months now.
I went back to work a fortnight ago and caught the office bug, so have been a snotty coughing mess. For 3 nights I got dh up to do the night shift, because coughing does not sooth a baby to sleep. Dh was dying a death after 3 nights, and announced we should call in a sleep consultant.
I should explain by this point that we've tried several sleep training techniques already. In fact, pretty much all of them! In order, we did pick up /put down when ds was younger, disappearing chair /gradual retreat, controlled crying (we cracked before he did!), my own patented technique, the mini bedtime, we have also just given up and got him up for a few hours in the night for a while.
So yesterday morning I found and booked a local sleep consultant, handed over £180 (there goes my new shed!), and had a first consultation via Skype.
We agreed that we were going to have to do controlled crying. I thought we were at this point anyway, and the consultant got dh onboard.
We packed dd off to the grandparents for the night, warned the neighbours and steeled ourselves.
Who would like to guess what ds did last night?