This is going to be a long one so I apologise in advance.
My DD is 10.5 mo, she’s never been the best sleeper but the past 3 months she’s only got worse.
We nurse to sleep and then I put her in her cot, both for day time and night time sleep. Previously this was never an issue but recently she wakes up crying as soon as I put her down. She’s not so bad for naps, it’s more of a 50/50 if she’ll wake up right away, but you can guarantee she will wake when I put her down at night.
When I do finally get her down I have a 30-1 hour window where she will stay down, after that it’s about 2-3 hours of on and off trying to put her in her cot. She will usually then spend a couple of hours in her cot before ending up in bed with us.
She will sleep amazing on our bed, and I wouldn’t mind it so much but both me and my partner get the worst nights sleep and it also means we don’t get our evenings together which is pretty important to us.
We do room share, but I don’t think this has any effect as she wakes up crying whether we’re in the room or not.
Putting her down awake, or drowsy but awake doesn’t seem to work one bit, she just gets herself worked up and will only settle when nursing. I’ve also tried the pick up put down but similar thing, she will cry as soon as she’s put back down. CIO is something I really don’t want to do.
I’ve tired adjusting her naps and sleep schedule but that also doesn’t seem to make a difference. Currently we’re on 2.3/3.5/4 wake windows with a 1.5 hour 1st nap and a 30min-1 hour 2nd nap (I’ve tried to make these longer but doesn’t seem to be happening).
We have a pretty solid bed time routine, white noise machine and black out blinds, but I don’t think she likes the pitch dark so we have a red light. During naps the curtains are open a bit so I think that helps her sleep better for some reason.
I realise I’ve rambled on quite a bit, but if anyone has any advise or reassurance it would be very helpful.