gradual retreat or CC?

[EveHen]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone might have some advice or similar stories to help us with our 11.5 month old sleeping. A bit of background - DD has never slept more than 3 hours since birth. She is breastfed and in the early months she was often/mainly fed to sleep. She went through a bad sleep regression starting at 3 months for 6 weeks, then again from 8-10.5 months which was pretty soul destroying. Just after the latest sleep regression I started back to work and she started nursery. She has taken to nursery quite well and often doesn't even cry when I drop her off and is settled in the evenings. Our current sleep pattern is bed at 7 ( after a sleep routine, usually not fed to sleep, put down in cot and patted sushed until she goes down, takes about 20 mins. She likes to sit up so is told or made to lie down again), wakes at 9 when DP settles her, wakes at 10.30/11 and is fed and put down in her cot again. After that she will wake again 12 or 1 and we will co sleep. She is pretty good in our bed but does wake several times and want the boob, I think for comfort. But it starts to get uncomfortable and I need to move then she goes a bit mental for half an hour to an hour. She then settles and wakes about 7. We feel we have made quite an effort not to have her rely on boob/dummy but she is adamant that we stand over the cot and cannot leave. Before the last sleep regression she could self settle, but once she learned to sit up that became impossible and we haven't been able to get back there. She is pretty persistant and during her sleep regressions I have routinely spent 1 - 1.5 hours putting her down at night. We were preparing to do CC but I am worried that it will turn into a 3 hour marathon which we might cave in. However gradual retreat sounds like it takes forever and I am not sure that it will mean any less crying or stress for her. Sorry for the long essay but wondering if anyone has any similar experiences or any advice? Thanks in advance

Tumbleweed! Back to Dr Google and fingers crossed I get some sleep soon...

Bump for you, as I'm interested! Hope the baby's sleep improves, whichever you decide to go for.

Self settling is developmental. It’s hard, but it’s normal. My 20 month old still wakes a few times a night but for the first year of her life she woke every 1-2 hours. Can you cosleep to get the most rest?

I was in a really similar position to you, my one ended up sleeping with me for most of the night. Once he got to one though, I spent two horrendous weeks doing a sort of gradual retreat. I'm not sure what the proper method is, but week 1, every time he woke I'd give him a cuddle, lay him back down, then each time I'd move further away. Week 2 I stopped picking him up and just lay him back down.

Honestly; it was the worst two weeks of my life. At least 4 days involved me sitting on his floor crying. One day I was so tired I spent most of the day crying. But it worked. He now sleeps through pretty consistently and will self settle if he wakes.

I'm not sure if it's the best way, but I didn't want to do CC and it did work for us. It really was hard work though, I wanted to give up so many times but I'm glad I didn't.

Good luck!

Do whichever you feel you’re most likely to not cave in on. If short but more painful sounds easier to you go with cc. If longer but quieter then gradual retreat.

Thanks for your comments everyone!
The thing is, before the 8-10 month sleep regression we had got her to self settle. We would put her down and she would grizzle for 5 mins then go to sleep (as least at the start of the night!). But then she learned to sit up and she hasn't self settled since.
At the moment we do co-sleep, just not from the start of the night. She always starts in the cot, my partner does the 9pm wake up so she can't smell my milk, then I do the 10.30/11 wake up with milk and she goes back into the cot. Any wake ups after that end up with us co-sleeping. I find co sleeping generally quite good, except when she just wants my nipple as a dummy and then cries for ages when I remove it (because it becomes really uncomfortable).
Aside from the lack of sleep and the difficulties functioning at work/home, I also worry that I am not teaching her good habits. Surely frequent wakings are just as tiring for her as for me!!!
Isitme - great to hear your difficult but ultimately positive experience. I think we will try something similar. Did you just do that at the start of the night or for all the wake ups? ( I am not sure I will have the stamina at 3 am!!)

Surely frequent wakings are just as tiring for her as for me!!!

What she is doing is TOTALLY normal. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a mumsnet sleep board for people such as yourself! All she knows is to call out for you and you will help her get back to sleep, it is really really hard I honestly understand fully - I have hallucinated before due to my ‘bad’ sleeper. But at 20 months she is the smartest, happiest littler person and she always knows I will see to her needs.

I don't know if anyone is interested, but sometimes I look at old threads and wish there had been an update! So here goes. We are now at 18 months, and we had our first night of sleep (till 5am) at 17 months, and it is becoming more frequent.
We basically continued what we had been doing. We tried to cut down on the co-sleeping by making it longer before we would let her in our bed, which helped (she used to end up in our bed at 1am, but we pushed it out to 3am or later, and then she would tend to sleep for longer periods).
With regards to the sitting/standing - eventually we go to a place where we would go in, lie her down and then leave (rather than wait with her until she would stay lying down). She would often stand straight back up and cry (she was very very frustrated) We would go back in within a few minutes and lie her down again. Eventually she got the idea that we weren;t going to pick her up and then she would be easier to lie down and would stay there longer. We would increase the time periods out of the room. It seemed to work better with us out of the room rather than staying in there. Lastly I had a weekend away at 16 months which helped break the cycle of breastfeeding, so now we only feed at 5am. Hope that helps someone out there!