DS’s sleep started to deteriorate at six months and by the time he was ten months I was getting 3-4 hours broken, uncomfortable, suffocating sleep a night as he refused to sleep unless he was on me (preferably kicking me.)
I ended up contacting a sleep consultant when DS was 18 months and after one awful night his sleep improved beyond all measure, he actually slept in his cot and he would sometimes sleep through. On the occasions when he woke he was generally pretty easy to resettle.
However, things have been slipping again (about six months after we did the initial sleep training.)
To start with, he was waking earlier and earlier until 5 just became the norm. I can live with that, but then he started being difficult at bedtime and screaming when I put him in his cot. I had to step outside for two minutes then go back and calm him down and then he’d sleep.
Now for the past couple of weeks he has refused to nap - he won’t do ‘quiet time’ - he will nod off in the car and he sleeps at nursery no problem so I think he does still need it. But I can’t get him to sleep in his cot. He’s waking all through the night and he takes ages to nod off - sits there shouting.
I just got quite annoyed and shouted at him for kicking which I know isn’t a good way of dealing with it, but I am very worried about things slipping. During the period when he was sleeping so badly it really affected our relationship as I felt a lot of resentment towards him and I was so tired it was hard to muster the energy to do much.
What should I do - anyone got any thoughts?