My dd was a brilliant sleeper from 1 week old until 6.5 months, literally slept through the night every night no issues. We put her in her own room at 6.5 months due to leg slamming keeping us up at night and she was rapidly outgrowing the next to me and since then she’s been a nightmare.
I don’t think I’ve had any constant periods of sleep for more than 3 hours in the last 6 months. I have tried everything and spent hundreds on a new mattress, mattress toppers, a humidifier, essential oils for said humidifier, fucking Ewan and Ollie, every sleeping bag on the market, I’ve tried literally everything. Every sleep music thing on YouTube, white noise, books under her mattress, you name it I’ve tried it. Literally nothing works.
I started sleep training her a few weeks ago just after her first bday- we all had norovirus over Christmas and it wiped us out, we got back into the habit of rocking her to sleep but we were having awake periods of 3 hours every night from 1am - 4am. I started off rubbing her back and soothing her until she fell asleep, I’m now at a point where I rub her back for a minute or so then sit in the chair opposite her cot until she falls asleep independently. But it’s not the getting her to sleep that’s an issue, she goes down fine and sleeps like a log for about 4 hours. Then she’s awake every 2-3 hours all night. She sits up in her cot and cries until we go in and soothe her back to sleep, this can take anything from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. I have tried just leaving her to cry a few times but she gets that worked up she starts heaving and then takes ages to settle, plus I just don’t like the idea of cry it out, it’s not my parenting style. I’m honestly at the absolute end of my tether though, if I don’t get a decent nights sleep soon I think I’ll have breakdown. I’m an emotional, angry wreck constantly because I’m just exhausted and I can’t remember the last time I cooked an actual nutritious meal for me and DH, we live off freezer teas and takeaways because I just dread night time and can’t be bothered spending the good 4 hours we get cooking and cleaning.
I don’t know what I’m expecting from posting this, just some kind of words of hope that it will get better eventually or maybe something I haven’t tried yet? She has just started walking so I’m not sure if we’re in the midst of the 12 month sleep regression at the moment as she has been particularly painful this last 2 weeks. She’s currently crying every time we leave the room tonight, we’ve been in 5 times in the last hour and she just keep crying the second we leave her. I feel like the worst mum in the world because I really lose my rag with her sometimes and I know it’s not her fault and she just feels scared and lonely and wants some comfort. During the day she’s the happiest little soul and separation anxiety when I’m out of her sight doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore during the day but nighttime is just a totally different matter.