Help!

[littlestrawby]

Argh, having the usual crap evening ending with DH getting annoyed and ranting about how rubbish our DD's sleep is.

She's nearly 9mo and has always been a bad sleeper - hit terribly by 4 month regression and things have just become worse since then.

At the moment she wakes every 45 mins from bedtime and usually by around 10pm she won't resettle regardless of what we try (she'll wake up as soon as we put her down) and I have to go to bed and take her with me.

My husband hasn't slept in our room since she was born, we can never spend any time together in the evenings as we're constantly on edge listening out for her and wondering when she'll refuse to go back down without me.

During the night she'll wake up constantly despite co-sleeping, often very very unsettled for a few hours between 3 and 6ish (she'll wake crying every 10 mins and I'll feed her to sleep then she'll wake again etc etc). If I'm lucky she'll have an hour or two at 7am but not always!

She seems to struggle to stay asleep, she'll writhe around on her tummy and start tucking her knees up and then she'll wake crying sitting up.

She always always cries when she wakes up, not sure if that is normal or not?

My husband wants me to take her to the doctors but I'm aware of how lame it'll sound that I'm taking her for being a bad sleeper!!! Other than ear infections is there anything else that could be disturbing her?

We tried a gentle sleep consultant but ditched it after a week as DD just wasn't doing well with it so we're back to square one. I have no idea what to do.

Sounds like DS was - it's horrific and you have my sympathies. Are you feeding her back to sleep every time? (Or trying to - I appreciate she's difficult to resettle).
Will she take a bottle? If so, first, for your sanity, get yourself out of the house overnight for some nights and leave her with DH. I know you'll feel terrible because she'll scream but she will be ok in the long run. Honestly. I did this at least 2 nights a week with DS around this age.

When he was about 11 months we gradually started cutting night feeds (by pushing forward the time of night I was prepared to do first feed) and he had to go to sleep without feeding. Again, much screaming, but we stayed with him, patted, sang etc. I was very very sceptical this would have any effect as he didn't reliably feed to sleep anyway, but like a miracle it had the desired effect and he slept through the night for the first time a week short of his first birthday.

We did all the going to GPs, osteopaths, etc. Not much help but that was what I expected to be honest, I didn't really think they'd find anything wrong with him. I'd go with your gut instinct here.

Happy to discuss sleep consultants too if you want to PM me! Good luck.

@FraterculaArctica thank you :) my husband is adamant that our DD is the only one like this but I'm sure it can't be that rare!!
She will take a bottle but wont go to sleep with one. I did go away for a night a few months ago as it was my best friend's hen do, unfortunately DD would not sleep at all and it was very traumatic all round - I ended up driving back home for 3 hours at 5am to get back to her!

I wonder if part of the problem is that we won't leave her to cry?! We wouldn't have the stamina to be able
to sit and pat her while she is screaming! She will just scream and scream and scream...

Funnily enough I was just saying to DH about looking up cranial osteopath or whatever it's called! Not very hopeful though...

Thanks I will def pm you :)

Oh also - amazingly she is not fed to sleep at the start of the night. She goes to sleep beautifully for my husband within a few minutes of cuddles with her sleepy song! After a certain point in the night though nothing but boob will do