I so don't want to do controlled crying but could it be my only answer?

[pookamoo]

DD is 10.5 months old. I go back to work at the start of December so we are under huge pressure to get this sorted. Forgive me if this is a really long post but I will try to put everything down.

She had colic and for the first 5 months of her life was basically carried around by me or DH. We spent hours and hours pacing with her, or with her in the sling, and she has never been a fantastic sleeper. She very often used to go 24 hours with about 1 hour's sleep.

Things got a little better eventually the colic stopped and we were cosleeping, I was bfing her to sleep. Eventually she started to nap in the day, and now she will often have 2 naps in the daytime, usually about half an hour at about 9.30 or 10am, and then another in the afternoon, about 2 ish, perhaps 45 minutes to an hour.

For a time she would go down to sleep about 7.30, sleep until 11, wake at 1am and 4am and then up for the day at 7. I still bf her to sleep. DH was able to cuddle her down to sleep, as long as I had given her a long bf beforehand.

Now, only I can get her to sleep, she will only fall asleep bfing and sometimes it takes 2 hours. Last night she was up 9 times between midnight and 7am. It took 3 hours to get her to sleep (7 til 10) and even then she woke a couple of times between 10 and midnight. She does not get drowsy. It's like she's on something. She has little bags under her eyes, which are red rimmed in her little pale face, although she is a very happy baby, she is only getting about 7 hours sleep over 24 hours at a time. I get less.

I can't go on like this. Right now DH is holding her while she howls. Today, after her marathon stint last night, she had about an hour's sleep 3.30 til 4. Bedtime 7pm, usual routine, including bf, but she wouldn't go to sleep and we are both crying!

I am so close to trying CC, although it goes against all my instincts. I just know that she needs to learn to settle herself to sleep, or at the very least, to go to sleep with someone other than me. She doesn't get drowsy, she is just so perpetually overtired she just goes into meltdown. I don't think it would even work for her, as she winds up not down.

I have tried NCSS.
I have tried sshhh pat (me shhh patting her as she crawls around the cot wailing did NOT help!)

can anybody help me???????

pookamoo - how are things going? Have you got a plan? Lots of different opinions and ideas here, so hopefully there should be something to suit you. After 2 years with two very very different twins, I am finally realising you need to find a parenting style that suits you AND the child. My DD would be furious if I co-slept, my DS would love it!

greenmonkies - I have been thinking alot about your post. It really interests me, how we can strike a balance between making a child happy by attending to all its needs, and attending to our own lives. Which do exist - jobs, parents, partners, friends, our own mental health - all of which need to be loved and nurtured to varying degrees. And at some point children need to learn they are not number one priority every second of every day (they will learn this anyway!) but it doesn't mean they aren't loved. I don't know when this age is, or how you do it.

But I think it is probably a conversation over a glass of wine, rather than the internet. Which is why MN always leaves me feeling a bit dissatisfied, conversations I would love to have in RL, not on a faceless message board!!

Hi everyone, sorry I have been off the board for a couple of days. Lots of advice and helpful comments here. Really long update for you!

matnanplus I don't have CAT so I couldn't click on the contact button, but you can email me at pookamoo @ googlemail.com.

I have had my mum staying for a couple of days and she has been brilliant. She is firmly of the "never leave the baby to cry" camp, as am I, so I trust her totally. She had me to deal with as a baby and by all accounts I was a nightmare sleeper (not through the night until at least 2 years old, although I know there are worse!). She's also pro co-sleeping, which as I mentioned earlier, we did with DD from about 2 months til 8 months, and would do again.

Anyway, we talked about it a lot, and with all the advice I have been given by you lovely mners, had a look at exactly what was happening. This is what we came up with:

1. Although I have always fed DD to sleep, actually, this doesn't work any more! She drops off to sleep, I pop her in the cot, and within 2 minutes she is awake and protesting loudly - can't say I blame her, there she was all cosy minding her own business on mummy's boob, the next thing she knows she's opened her eyes in the cot all by herself .

2. DH was then comforting her in any way he could. She's a bit heavy to rock for ages, and as soon as you pick her up, she's looking around the room (even in the dark) so he had been laying her in the cot and stroking/patting through the bars or lying beside her on our bed until she went to sleep. She would cry throughout this process.

So, the first night my mum was here, DD went into meltdown during her dinner. She was obviously tired from all the excitement of Granny's visit, so I took her up to her room and started the bedtime routine. I did everything as usual, and then started to feed her to sleep. She fed for a few minutes, settled down, and then let go. She stared up at me, but didn't go rooting around for the boob. I thought "well what now?!" So I put her in her cot. She snuggled down, rolled about a bit, huffed and puffed and went to sleep! I could not believe it!

DH came home from work about 5 minutes later, "where is she?" he said... and had to go and look at her to see that she was actually asleep!

I think what had happened is that over the last weekend she had tired herself out so much that she was just exhausted. She realised on Monday night that actually it wasn't worth the hassle to fuss, and since I or DH would always be around when she calls, she might as well go to sleep. So she did!

Tentatively, I tried it again in the night. When she stopped feeding, I put her in the cot. A bit of a grizzle, then rolled over and went to sleep! Same at nap time yesterday. In fact, I had to go to a meeting last night, and DH was not yet home from work so mum put her to bed after her tea and a bath without even a breastfeed and she went down with minimal fussing. She's done the same for naps today, so fingers crossed, everything will be ok.

I still stand by my reluctance to do CC. DH and I have always followed an attachment parenting style and CC just seemed to go against the grain for us, although we can accept that for some families it is the right choice. Hopefully, we have turned a corner.

Once again, mumsnet has saved the day of a mum at the end of her tether!
Thanks to all.

Wow that's fantastic!! So pleased for you, sounds like you have cracked it.

They really do surprise you sometimes!!

Wow that is amazing! Hooray for grandparents (I say that often )Am so very pleased for you that something is working. And even better, that it is something that fits with your style of parenting. In fact, that is probably why it does work.

I was also v interested in your comment that she knew you were always around, so no need to fuss about it. Which is almost the polar opposite of CC but with the same result.

But I hope you aren't reading this and are tucked up in bed enjoying your new-found evening!

So glad you've turned a huge corner.

I did Pick Up Put Down with mine when they were really really young with very much the attitude I wanted them to understand it was okay to be alone to go to sleep it involved no screaming, no being left to cry just lots of patience and reassurance and that if they were unhappy I'd alway be there.

I couldn't co-sleep btw.

I think the hiccough with co-sleeping is that so often babies fall into being fed to sleep every time and then they can't actually sleep without suckling, it's a tricky one to even contemplate thinking about in the haze of having a young baby.

Believe it or not, it seems to still be working! Back down awake after a short feed at 3am, she was up at 7am and went for a nap about 9.30 - still asleep now, and I am going to have to wake her up as we need to go out - such a shame! She had 2 naps yesterday as well, and was asleep before 8! I am not going to know what to do with myself!