Hello all, I've been reading this thread with interest as my nearly 8mo is a terrible sleeper, the exhaustion is making me a raging bitch and I'm back at work in 2 weeks so no idea how I'm going to function.
Basically, I've messed everything up. DS will only nap in his bouncy seat, his pram or the car. I know I need to sort this as he'll outgrow the bouncer soon apart from anything else. He usually has a nap at 9am (after school run for 5yo DD) for about 1.5-2hours and then another one in the afternoon (timing varies but usually 1pm ish) for about an hour- 1.5 hours. So he does have a couple of decent naps but I've got him into bad habits with needing motion to nap unfortunately.
His night time sleep used to be really good. Then about 12 weeks ago he just suddenly started waking in the night. He still goes down at 7pm with no fuss most nights but I do give a bottle before bed. The night wakings became more and more frequent and he started to wake up for the day earlier and earlier. So he's gone from sleeping through from 7pm- 6.15am every night to him waking every hour (sometimes more often) starting anywhere from 11pm-1am until he finally is awake for the day at 5am (if we're lucky). He doesn't have any teeth yet but is showing all the signs of teething. Im half expecting three or four to pop through at once any day now and it'll be like "oh that explains everything!" but who knows.
He's still in our room at night, in a bedside crib. I know, I know, that's not good. But he's waking up so frequently I don't see the point in moving him to his own room as then I'll have to go traipsing up and down the landing every hour, sometimes more, during the night. I know at some point soon he's going to outgrow the crib though and it'll force our hand. I've made a right mess of this, haven't I? 
. I have PND which doesn't help as the lack of sleep is definitely affecting my mood.
Today I decided he needs to start napping in his crib. He went down fine at 9am with no fuss but was wide awake after only 30 minutes. Consequently he was moody and tired the rest of the morning so I brought his lunch forward and put him down in his cot for another nap at 12pm. He was obviously tired, rubbing his eyes etc so I thought it would be fine but omg, he went crazy!! Screamed his head off (no actual tears though so maybe just temper?) for 30 minutes before finally falling asleep. During that time I stayed with him, stroking and shushing but he did NOT like the blowing in his face. That gave him the rage!! Anyway, he fell into what looked like a deep sleep after the 30 minute scream fest but then, same as in the morning, was awake again 30 minutes later. This time I persevered though, more shushing, stroking etc. After 15 mins of half-hearted whingeing he did eventually roll onto his side and go back to sleep for another 45 minutes so not too bad I suppose?
My plan for bedtime is to throw the ipad at 5yo DD and take DS upstairs at 6.30pm and do bedtime routine. 5yo usually goes to bed at 7 so that gives me a half an hour window to deal with DS in case he does kick off... Hoping that's enough. DH isn't usually home for bedtime and is away a lot so it's tough.
I have no idea what to do about night wakings though...I can't just let him cry every time he wakes as DD will be awake all night too and she's already shattered from school as it is. DH thinks DS would sleep better in his own room but I'm worried it'll just make it worse. Also DH would say that because DS seems to only want me at night so DH won't be the one spending all night traipsing back and forth.
I know this is probably the sleep deprivation talking but I just feel so negative about it all. Part of me thinks there's no point trying to tackle it as I've failed so badly and it's too late to get back on track.