My lo is 9 and a half months old. She’s always been a bad sleeper and at 6m I put her in her own room, sleep trained using the Ferber method and after the first night she would sleep in her own room through the night with minimal wakeups. This was great and continued for about a month and a half. Then it’s like something switched in her brain, which I can only presume is separation anxiety. She will not sleep in her room, I tried to sleep train again and she gets herself into a state so I end up co-sleeping. I accepted she just wants her mum and decided to keep co-sleeping. However, for the past 2 months I am having to restrain her to sleep and it’s a nightmare. She decided she will only sleep on her belly, but what she does is gets on her belly and then pushes herself up so she’s sat back up, multiple times a night. So when I get her back to sleep I am having to hold her down and hold her hands. She screams and fights me. She could be exhausted and will still do this. She has also stopped falling asleep in her pram as much. I took her soft play yesterday and after a long 2 and a half hour play she refused to sleep in her pram on the way home and then once I put her down I had to once again hold her down whilst she fought me.
I have had people say it’s developmental and she will want to sit up and practice her new skills but this has been going on 2 months and seems to be getting worse. I can’t really leave the bedroom once she’s down at night because she wakes up so often and rather than self soothing back to sleep like she used to do, she will just sit herself up. Which means I have to be there to put her back down. So I’m laid in bed, on my phone with the brightness down until i am tired enough to fall asleep. I feel like I get no ‘me’ time to destress and I do cry a lot because of this.
I want more than anything to transition her back to her own room but right now it seems impossible and I have lost hope that it will get any better. The main issue is even though I can initially get her to sleep, she wakes up that often in the night that I would get no sleep.
I want to add:
She has a dummy, but since she can pop it back in now it isn’t really a problem. I’ve tried to cold Turkey that when she was younger and she was having none of it. If I tried it again now I am sure she will be the same.
Self-soothing atm is non-existent for her. I can either rock and pat her back or hold her down and hold her hands whilst shushing.
She has a bottle before she sleeps as it relaxes her then does not really need another in the night. Only time I will offer it her is if she wakes up around 4-5am and thinks it is playtime. This is rare, I can usually hold her down and she will go back to sleep.
I have tried multiple things before she goes to sleep to try relax her. She has white noise, a bath, massage oil, plenty of cuddles, she likes me singing to her too.
She doesn’t really have a great routine because she is a nightmare to get to sleep. Sometimes she will fight me until early morning which means she will wake up later (around 10am). Other times like today she went to sleep around 9pm and woke up for the day at 8am. She has been asleep around 30minutes for her first nap, once again fought me, even though she’s exhausted. I try stay with her in the room so if she wakes up after half an hour I can get her back to sleep so she can sleep longer. Her next nap will most likely be around 4/5ish. If I can get an hour out of her I will be happy. Then bed time is just whenever she is ready, I will bath her at 8pm and she is usually sleepy after that. It is never straight forward though, she will probably go to sleep for about 45min and then the night begins of me trying to get her back to sleep every so often.
Sorry this is long, but you can imagine I am very stressed and emotional. I am having to stay with her whenever she sleep which means house work atm with her awake is very hard. I also don’t really get a minute to myself as her dad works all day (and we don’t live together). My mum is off work Thursdays and the weekend so she will help as much as she can. But she’s older and my lo is very hard work.