Sleep training (with a sleep consultant) - thoughts/advice?

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My 8.5 month old has never slept through the night, and I feel like we've never quite got over the four month sleep regression - but now we've hit the eight month one and everything's even worse! He has already now (at 10.55) woken up four times since going to sleep at 7.50. On a good night he can do a six hour stretch (though hasn't for weeks now), on a bad one it's hourly wake ups. The problem is that even on nights where he only wakes two or three times we often get periods of an hour plus where he won't be settled back to sleep and he just screams while we walk round with him OR (better but somehow more frustrating?!) he is happy but awake and will lie grinning at us in the cot but cries when we leave the room. He has also been reliably waking up at 5am for a few weeks now and although he's clearly still tired nothing will convince him to go back to sleep.

I gave up breastfeeding him at night when I went back to work at 6 months which at the time seemed like a way of getting through because DH could do most of the nightwakings (he's been on shared parental leave but is going back in a few weeks) but in hindsight just took away the most reliable way of resettling him.

We've tried everything we can from all the 'no cry' stuff, to no avail. Cosleeping works really badly for us - I basically don't sleep at all and he's a restless nightmare and we still have to get up to resettle him when he wakes - but we have been resorting to it recently because although we still don't sleep at least he isn't screaming (he is giggling, crawling over us, slapping me in the face and pulling DH's hair, though).

When he was six months I got as far as booking a sleep consultant and then cancelled because I felt too guilty. I've got in touch with her again but still feel conflicted. She's a 'gentle' sleep consultant but did warn that with the method (basically gradual retreat) there are tears. Part of me is scared that there's actually something wrong and we'll be letting him cry when he's in pain - he does have mild eczema which doesn't seem to bother him at night but I worry that maybe he has an undiagnosed allergy or something (we haven't been able to track his skin to his food at all). On the other hand he seems so tired so much of the time that I wonder how many favours the current situation is doing him. I'm also really underperforming at work and my flexible arrangements are based on me working in the evening at home a few days a week, which I'm really struggling with.

Any thoughts? Advice? People who have done it and regret it? People who have done it and think we should go for it?

We've just done it, at 13 months. Life-changing! One night of tears, another night of a few tears, that's pretty much it. I think of it a giving him the gift of learning to sleep. I think things are so up and down over the first year or so though, it might be different for a slightly younger one.

Well, he has a cold now. Which means that we had an absolutely appalling night last night (he slept six hours in blocks of no longer than 45 minutes, four of those six hours in either DH or I's arms) but obviously we can't start any kind of sleep training until he's better so it's on pause.

I did it with an almost 6 month old because she wasn't getting anywhere near the amount of sleep she needed and it was clear the sleep deprivation was affecting her mood. She was so damn alert that she refused to nap all day every day (except catnaps on the breast which ended the second the nipple came out of her mouth). Once 4 month regression hit, she also woke every 45 minutes at night and any attempts to cosleep were met with similar experiences to yours - hair pulling, giggling, chatting in the bed and then eventual crying because we did not respond to her.

Being a younger baby, we used PUPD and she took to it amazingly well. The hardest part was her learning that sleep was no longer a negotiation and we would keep going until she went to sleep. She didn't cry anywhere near as much as we expected (which probably contributed towards the success) and was napping twice a day plus sleeping well at night within 10 days. She went form being grumpy and irritable to a happy, delightful baby during the day.

She has gone through all the inevitable regressions since and we have got through them sitting next to the cot/occasional co-sleeping etc but the clear message that she has to sleep at sleep time has stuck so for us it was life changing.

So far so positive then! We've got the consultation with the sleep consultant tomorrow, but obviously won't be starting until he's totally free of his cold. DH also took him to the GP this morning and was a bit more vocal than he's previously been about his eczema medication seeming ineffective and so they've given him some new stuff to try.

Hiya there! Im having similar problems with our 2 1/2 year old girl. I am currently 5 months pregnant so weve recently moved her out of her cot (and room) and into her newly painted pink room with a big girl bed in it. In her cot she slept like a dream 7pm-7am no problem.

Shes been in her new room about 6weeks now and she is happy to go to sleep in her room but she wakes up 3am screaming like clockwork. 3am-6am is nightmare time for us. She just screams. She has a babygate on her door so we have tried sleeping in bed with her and moving out when she asleep, tried leaving her to cry, tried talking to her calmly. Nothing seems to work and im sure our neighbours are close to reporting us because of the screaming haha

As i said we have a baby on the way in july and i dont want to let her come in to our bed becaue when baby is here - 4 in a bed just isnt ideal.

Im thinking of getting intouch with a sleep trainer, i think we are doing something wrong. Any recommendations for uk based sleep trainers for toddlers?

hire someone. For sure. But don't sleep train while he's sick.

I think you're doing a few things wrong for what my lay opinion is worth. Why are you waking around with him at night? If you woke up at 2am and someone scooped you up and walked around your home, it would wake you up more not send you back to sleep. It's also blurring the line between sleep time & awake time.

Also if he's happy chatting in the cot, I would just leave him to it. Pretend to be asleep, don't leave the room.

Do you have a second bedroom? Some people find moving baby into their own room to be a game changer

Of course we're not going to sleep train while he's ill, I've said that!

We walk around his room (which is a box room, so we're talking a few steps around), not the house, because motion is the only reliable way to get him to drop off. I agree it's probably not ideal because it makes wake time quite interactive but he screams otherwise.

I've tried lying down on his floor and pretending to be asleep. He cries, just as he does if I leave the room, except now I'm lying on a floor...

Thanks for your advice but just so you know for the future, your tone comes off poorly

This isn't a personal dig at you YesimstillwatchingNetflix but I don't think its helpful when people in general compare whether something would work for an adult to a baby. There are countless things that settle babies which would never work for us as adults (sucking being a hugely significant one) and many ways we respond to babies and toddlers who are crying that we would never do for an adult such as picking up a child who has hit another and removing them from the situation. We need to think about it in terms of appropriate for a child of that age - so picking them up in a dark room, cuddling and providing rhythmic movement likely will calm them as these are things that settle babies to sleep. Taking them into a room with bright lights and stimulation, however, would be counterproductive.

Sarahjanechudasama my eldest is a few months younger than yours but I also have a 6 month old and we have found that having one of us sleep in the same room as her and other one with the baby works best for now. We are lucky we have space for a full size bed as well as hers in her room - not sure if the same works for you? She is still in her own cotbed and DH sleeps in the bed so when she wakes at night (generally rarely but she gets nightmares sometimes), he is there to reassure her and stay with her while she goes back to sleep.

Good luck OP, I hope things are successful with the sleep consultant once he's recovered from the cold.