This is a bit of a mammoth post, apologies in advance but I'd really welcome some advice.
My 14 month-old DD is breastfed to sleep and we co-sleep. She has always been very clingy, to the extent that all her daytime naps were in a sling until she was 5 months old and then she graduated to a pushchair, which we still use. She used to sleep very lightly and would wake at the slightest noise but this has got better and she now sleeps soundly although she has a tendency to fight sleep and sometimes it's a struggle to get her to sleep. In the evenings she used to sleep in the sling too until I went to bed as she refused to go in her cot and even her Amby nest after the first month. Once she was six months old I discovered that I could feed her to sleep in bed and she'd stay asleep, which meant I could then creep away and have at least a couple of hours to myself before she woke up again, although she'd frequently wake after half an hour and would need to be fed back to sleep again. This would take only 5-10 minutes though and I could cope with this. Until a month or so ago she typically woke 2-3 times a night for a feed, although sometimes more when teething/ill etc. This I could also handle
However, in the past month her sleep has deteriorated significantly. It may be a developmental thing as she's just started walking so perhaps it is just a phase I need to ride out. I am finding it exhausting and extremely frustrating though. Often it takes up to 3 hours to settle her in the evenings. We have a bedtime routine, which always worked well until early December. She has her dinner at around 5pm then has a bath and a story and goes to bed and is fed to sleep. She used to be asleep somewhere between 6.45 and 7.15pm at the latest. In early December she started pinging awake soon after drifting off to sleep and I was unable to get her back off to sleep again as she'd rampage round the bed and wouldn't lie still to feed. Taking her in my arms to feed her didn't work either as she'd start to fight me and cry. I read on MN that sleep often goes out of the window when they start walking so I started to bring her back downstairs and letting her charge around and practise walking until she was exhausted. Then she'd go to bed with me and go off very quickly. After a couple of weeks of this she stopped charging around after her initial waking and would be rubbing her eyes so I stopped bringing her downstairs but I'm still struggling to get her back to sleep and I'm spending 2 hours or more settling her as every time I try to move away (having waited 10-15 minutes until I think she's in a deep sleep) she'll wake and I have to start over again.
Throughout all of this she's always been very clingy during the night. Unless she's in a very deep sleep she always senses if I get up to go to the loo and starts screaming. It's now worse than ever, to the extent that I can't even make the slightest movement without waking her and the whole settling process starts again. Several nights in the past week I've spent 2 hours or more settling her during the night and I?m beginning to feel rather sleep-deprived. She'll pull off the breast and seems to settle herself to sleep but after a couple of minutes, sometimes longer, she'll wake for some reason and be searching for the breast and whimpering if she doesn't get it. Occasionally I can get her back off by shushing but more often than not I give her the breast as I don't want her to get too worked up. In addition, I wake up in the mornings aching all over from being forced to remain in one position all night.
Strangely I can leave her in the mornings if I get up at around 6am and she'll sleep happily until she wakes naturally anytime between 7 and 8.30am and then she'll be chatting away, not screaming like she does during the night.
The other problem is that DH works shifts so is not always around in the evenings and at night to give me a break and also help settle DD. Before all this started he was managing to settle her if she woke during the course of the evening but she now won't entertain the idea. Even during the day it's me she looks to and often if he picks her up she'll shake her head and reach out for me, which is upsetting for him.
DD goes to nursery one day a week but she started at the end of September and settled in very well so I don't think this clinginess is due to her being at nursery. In addition to which she hasn't been for a month with the snow and Christmas. Ironically she's always slept really well there.
I'm trying hard not to get frustrated and angry because I know it?s not her fault, but I'm desperate to get even just an hour to myself in the evenings. I've resorted to eating with her at 5pm so that I don?t end up eating dinner at 10pm (which has happened too many times!) However, it would be nice to have dinner with DH occasionally and have some adult time.
I really don't know what to try. I don't want to try CC as I think it will be totally counter-productive given DD's nature. In all other respects she's a happy, confident toddler and a delight to be with during the day. She is at night too when she's asleep next to me, I love co-sleeping when it's going well. I'm really not sure what the answer is, I guess I'm probably just looking for reassurance that this is a phase which will pass at some point! In the meantime I've been trying to give DD lots of cuddles during the day and offering her bfs (which she doesn't always want) in a bid to reassure her.
I guess I'm frustrated because things seem to be going backwards rather than forwards. I was hoping to start the Dr Sears or Dr Jay Gordon night-weaning programmes over Christmas to stop the night feeds but this has gone completely out of the window for the time being. Getting her to sleep on her own in a cot in her own room is a distant aim, although DH is getting more and more impatient about her being still in our bed. He thinks she should have been in a cot months ago, although he knows full well that she's always refused to go in her cot. I've also pointed out to him that it's not going to be an easy transition for a co-sleeping clingy baby and is going to require a lot of patience and time. Because DD is next to me he doesn't hear her waking in the night, assuming he's even here and not at work, unless she starts to cry and I don't think he quite realises what it's like for me, even when I tell him I'm exhausted and fed up.
Thanks for reading this far!