Hello,
I’m new here but really hoping that someone might be able to give me some advice as we’re really struggling with what to do.
DD has never slept for longer than four hours (which was a brief few weeks back when she was 8 months old) and is constantly up every two hours and often every hour. She’s been in a big side along crib (we co-slept for a little bit following a bout of illness but once she was well she liked her own space again.) We’ve been trying to move her into a cot at the end of our bed to help her sleep better as recommended by the health visitor. She won’t go down awake, she’s very active and will just start jumping and playing but she will go down and sleep in the cot fine once rocked to sleep. Problem is that she still wakes up just as much and it’s even more tiring having to get up and get her out of the cot. I’m still breastfeeding her and am worried that I’ve caused the problem by feeding her at night but they said feed on demand so I did and I don’t know how you transition out of that when she will literally scream for hours at night until she gets milk. My partner tries rocking her like he does at bedtime but has never succeeded in getting her back off in the middle of the night even if he’s at it for over an hour. I worry that she’s in pain, she seems to be constantly teething and the way she writhes at night makes it look like her tummy is sore too so I don’t know what to do, giving her milk feels like the right thing to do at the time and she gulps it down but I’m worried I’m just making it worse. She’s like a different baby during the day, very happy and independent and very active, she’s runs around all day long but at night she seems to really struggle. We can’t put her in her own room yet as we’re staying with family whilst we do up our house. Any advice gratefully received as we’re really struggling with tiredness, hard to think straight!