17 monts and has never slept thru - is there any hope for us?

[booboobunny]

feeling a total failure right now. dd is 17 mths and has never gine thru a whole night. she starts in a cot in our room and always ends up in the bed by 1am. i feel this is our fault as we were always v. quick to intervene if she woke, but is there any hope of either her 'just doing it' or us teachin her without resorting to cc? feeling really crap right now and have a 4 week old baby thrown in for good measure. can anyone suggest anything? pleeeeeease

hello booboobunny - you sound tired and fed up.
Don't worry - you've got a tiny baby to look after and I did exactly the same when our second was born. There was my DD on the sofa bed in our room, my DH trying to ignore all the crying, me up all night feeding and DD wetting the bed and having nightmares.

It'll all calm down in a few weeks I'm sure.
Can you put the cot into her own room?
Could your partner stay in her room with her when she wakes and instead of bringing her in like normal, sit next to the cot until she falls back off. Then maybe get a music lullaby type toy (we had florrie fimble) to lull her to sleep.

My DS is still waking through the night at almost 3 but we're so fed up of being knackered, that I'm being really strong and making him stay in his bed and sit with him until he feels secure enough for me to go.

Good luck - you'll be fine.

forgot to say - you are SO not a failure. Some people have 3/4 year old co sleeping and don't find it a problem so at 17 months, there's loads of time to sort it all out.

Neither of mine were brilliant sleepers. Putting them in beds was the great turning point for us - though your dd is a bit young for that. I think they just liked having more space and weren't waking up bashing themselves on the sides of the cot. Also when ds does wake up I just hop into bed with him for 5 minutes and he goes off again and I can escape back to my bed.

I'm sure it will improve - though obviously doesn't stop you being knackered now. You have my sympathies.

Aw don't feel like a failure, almost everyone I knoe has dcs that don't sleep through up to age 3. Not perhaps what you wanted to hear but I'm just saying that you're not alone! The pressure to have a child sleeping through can really throw things out of perspective.

Consider what you want and need as a family, if you're just wanting her to sleep through cos you feel she should, perhaps ease up on her and yourself a bit, it'll come when she's ready. if you're all too tired from co-sleeping with a wriggling dd how about a bigger bed? (we turned ours round so to fit ds and dd!) If you choose to do cc, then make sure you're sure, otherwise you'll end up beating yourself up about that to!

My heart goes out to you. 17 months of no sleep - and a 4 week old thrown in for good measure ?!? You must have the patient of a saint.
I do have a little bit of advice for you - although, my experience is based on 1 child -so, others may be better placed to advise you than I am.

I think the first thing you need to do, is to get your 17 month old out of your room. My ds is 14 months old - and whenever we go away, he sleeps in our room in the travel cot - and he always has the worst nights sleep. I think the reason is, when he wakes up in the night (and we all wake up through the night), he can see us, which means, he wants attention or wants to play. Whereas, when he wakes up in his own room, there's nothing going on, and he sends himself back to sleep. Might be worth a try ?

Also, I would do my damdest to make sure you don't have the same problems with the 4 week old. The reason being - if you have the same issues again - you're not going to have a full nights sleep until 2009 !!!

A friend of mine conquered her issues with her 22 month old when her second lo was about 10 weeks old - by putting them both in the same bedroom, and explaining to the older one, that she needed his help in looking after the baby at night - i.e. if the baby woke up and saw him, he would be reassured. Worked like a dream. Don't know whether she got lucky or whether it's worth a try? (I guess at this point, anything is worth a try ?) Although - I guess you may have to wait a little on this one - not sure a 17 month old would understand - and at 4 weeks, I'm fairly sure the second one isn't sleeping through the night as yet - therefore, waking patterns could be a nightmare !

booboobunny- I was just wondering if you were bfeeding- my dd didn't sleep through until I stopped this at 18 months. She was the worst sleeper I have ever heard of-was still waking 3-4 times a night at this stage, never slept more than 3 hours in a row. I was nearly insane with tiredness!
Personally, the answer wouldn't be to move her into her own room-she sounds too emotionally attached for that but I would change the way she is put to bed- could you more reassuring, spend more time with her? Or let her fall asleep in you rbed and sleep with or move once she is asleep.

i agree with imagine - i have a 9 month old and we co-slept, sure he had a great sleep but i did not as he was up every bleeding hour pulling my hair, poking my eyes etc and latching on for comfort, two days ago i put him in his cot and yes he protests at first but he sleeps through ,yes he wakes up for some sympathy crying but i leave him to it as it only lasts for max of a minute.

You're not a failure at all! Dd started sleeping through at about 2 years, when all her molars had come through. She was still bf and co-sleeping.

Havn't got many minutes but just wanted to say that you're not a failure, you don't need to do CC if you don't want and yes it will eventually get better. You must be exhausted and I feel for you. My DD is 15 months and doesn't sleep however on Sleep is for the Weak one of our longest contributors Tamdin has just achieved the previously thought unachievable by getting her cosleeping DS (22 months) to sleep through by doing pretty much nothing. He's just decided it's time.

thanks to everyone who has replied here. things are still no better here. my dd has decided that she hates the cot in our bedroom and cries inconsolably when we attempt to put her down in it. our bed is where she wants to be. i ave become the big bad wolf as i persist in trying while the husband will always get her out and cuddle her to sleep on thte bed. last night our evening started at 9.30 after we had been trying to get her to sleep for nearly 2 and a half hours. to say i am at my wits end is probably fair. i jsut don't know what to do. i don't want to scare her by leaving her to cry, but i also know she is playing us to some extent, and much of her 'crying' is actually not real. but i'm the only one who sees it. the dh thinks it's all proper crying, even though it is the type that he'd ignore in the daytime. it would defo help if we worked as a team, but we seem to have such differing views on what's going on that i can't see that happening anytime soon.

i am toying with changing her cot into a cot bed and seeing if she'll go down in that, though there is the real worry that she'll just get out of bed and start meddlin with things as i think she's really a bit too young to do it. as i said, i haven't a clue where to go from here. it's all such a shame too as dd is an absolute delight in te daytime, but i'm starting to dread nights.

at the moment dh and i sleep in sep rooms with a baby as they tag team to keep us awake and feeling v. miserable as i can't really see any hope of this changing in the near future. ho hum