My DS is nearly 9 months old and he does not sleep! He used to sleep up until about one month ago. Now he wakes every half an hour and he won’t nap during the day unless he is being held which is getting hard to cope with. When he goes to bed at night he has the same routine he has had since he was about 6 weeks old, he has his dinner, he has a bath and then he gets ready for bed (this is all done in a dim light so he knows it’s time to settle down). I then sit in the nursing chair next to his cot and give him his bottle. He will almost instantly fall asleep. That’s when it begins...! I put him down in his cot, either he will wake crying almost instantly, I try to put my hand on his chest to reassure him I am still there and sometimes this works and he will drift back off and sometimes it doesn’t. If he has gone to sleep I will leave the room, he will sleep for half an hour and then he is back up crying. I go back in and rock him for a little while then try putting him back down and that’s when he won’t sleep anymore. This goes on for hours every evening until eventually it becomes relentless and he comes into bed with me when I go to bed, once he is in my bed, he will go off to sleep until 5am but I don’t want this to become the norm but unfortunately it’s the only way him and I are getting any form of sleep. During the day, I try really hard to keep a routine with naps but again, same thing! If he gets put down, I’m done for!
Can anybody help me or give advise? I feel like I’m a terrible parent who can’t do anything to help him and I’m really getting down!