3.5 year old STILL isn't a great of sleeper

[SleepForTheWeek]

I'm actually at my wits end.

My story with DD1 is a long one with regards to her sleep, but basically she was absolutely awful until we did some gentle sleep training with her at 11 months with help from a SC. She went from waking 7+ times a night and needing us to fall asleep at bedtime to sleeping through and falling asleep independently.

HOWEVER, a couple months later she was quite unwell and would just not settle so I eventually caved and started feeding her again during the night, she also went back to needing us there to fall asleep. At this stage she would wake 1-2 times a night and I would always feed her back to sleep and she always came in with us after her first wake up.

She self weaned at 25 months when I was 3 months pregnant with DD2 but she would still get up shouting for us at some point during the night and would only settle in our bed playing with my hair for ages until she fell back asleep.

Fast forward to now. She still needs either me or DH to stay with her to fall asleep at bedtime. Her sleep has regressed and is now waking around 10pm really upset until someone gets in her bed with her, it can take over an hour for her to get back to sleep, then she'll usually wake a couple hours after this and come in with us till morning. She's such a restless sleeper, hitting out, shouting etc while she sleeps so no one is getting a good sleep.

DD2 is 10 months and gets up around 4 x a night, so you can imagine how tired I am.

Sorry, didn't mean to waffle but would really appreciate some support or advice!

I should mention, she's a very anxious and sensitive child and I can't/won't leave her to cry

I imagine this is my future if I have another one.

We got DD a 3/4 bed so we can easily hop into bed with her. Can you do that and DH can deal with your older child while you deal with the baby?

Have you sleep trained again since?

@CarpetMothsFuckOff no we've not, it took so much time, energy and (money!!) for it to all go tits up so we never did it again . I suppose inward hoping she would just grow out of it!!

@gingerbreadbiscuits she has a single bed which either DH or I can fit in but she usually screams for me or doesn't settle in her bed so after an hour or 2 of her tossing and turning we usually just take her through to our room

We share your pain. DD is 5, and always wants one of us at some point in the night. We have two full size single mattresses in her room and a superking bed (6' wide) in ours, and aim to have no more than two people in either. Which two is variable! She's normally happy to be in her room now, but we've played plenty of musical beds over the years - we've decided that maximum sleep is what we need, and this facilitates that.