Why won't my baby sleep??!

So you might remember back in October, we were having trouble with getting Charlie to sleep, either going to sleep by himself or then staying asleep. I talked on my blog here, about our attempts at sleep training and it seemed to work, for about a month. Once he hit 8 months, it all started to go wrong again.

At first, I thought he had started the separation anxiety phase and thought that if we just persevered for a few weeks, then he would go back to how he was. However, he is now nearly 11 months and there is no sign of him going back to his old sleeping habit. He used to go to bed between 7.30 and 8, depending on how tired he was really. But the routine was always the same: bath after tea and then Pjs on, cuddles with Daddy and then some milk. He'd be sleepy enough to put in his cot half awake and within 10 minutes or so, he would be asleep. He'd wake between 3-5am for a feed and go back down.

Now he won't even entertain the idea of going down in his cot awake. He screams and screams. Last night he screamed so much he started chocking and almost being sick and when I went to him he clung on to me sobbing his eyes out. Now the no nonsense parents would probably say to me that I gave in and that's what he wanted, but there is no way that I am leaving my sobbing baby to cry like that. I can generally work out when he's crying as if to say 'how dare you put me in my cot awake and not feed me to sleep.' This was very different. Eventually I managed to place him in his cot half asleep and had to stay there stroking him until he drifted off. He was then awake within half an hour! I gave in and fed him back to sleep and managed to get him back down. He then woke up at 1am. But it was really, really cold last night and his grow egg was on blue, so I am not sure if he was just cold. He ended up in bed with us at 1am anyway.

So I am left with wondering what to do. I don't feel I can go back to sleep training based on last night as I cannot leave him like that. He managed to get himself to sleep the night before though, with much less screaming, so I know he can do it. I just don't know what to do. I just want him to go to bed at a reasonable hour and stay there until about 4-5am, I don't mind that, I can work on that later on, once we've cracked actually going to bed! I really need some advice. I'm reluctant to speak to the health visitor as she told me to just do controlled crying, which I don't agree with. Although I can see the benefits and I know that it is proven to work. I know that he's older now, so it's not as traumatic for him, but it's still not nice.

So what do I do? Do I bite the bullet and go back to sleep training and endure his screaming for a few nights? If so, at what point do I cuddle him and then put back down? Or do I just give in and feed him to sleep until he weans himself off??? Help!

Sleep Training. How I got Charlie to sleep

As you may know, I went back to work at the start of the new school year and all was well for a few weeks; Charlie continued his one night time wake and it was manageable. And then we moved. I gave him a few weeks to settle into being in his own room and in a new house as he was waking a few times, but then he got worse and was going down at 7.30 and waking up between 10-11 and then again between 12-2 and then again nearly every hour or so after that. I was exhausted and I am sure hubby was too. The final straw was when I got ill. Properly ill,  as in spent three whole days in bed sleeping and not eating. Ask my mum or the hubby - I never do that when ill! I think the lack of sleep had really taken its effect on me and I knew it was time to do something. Loads of people had mentioned controlled crying or sleep training and I was completely dead set against it. I think I have even said on this blog I couldn't leave my baby to cry without comforting him. But I was at my wits end. He is nearly 8 months old now and he is waking in the night for a feed completely out of habit. It also coincided with the health visitor coming and suggesting sleep training that I decided that we needed to give it a go, not just for our sake, but for Charlie's too, as he can't get himself to sleep at night and only sometimes during the day.

So on the first day of half term, we began 'sleep training.' As I said, I'm not a huge fan of the whole concept of controlled crying or whatever you want to call it, so I modified it to make it work for us. Here's how I did it:

- Bedtime routine started. This involved PJ's, sleeping bag and then I  fed him and read him a story. He was still quite awake after this so I fed him again for a few more minutes.
- Took him upstairs, kissed him and put him in his cot, awake and said goodnight. I already had music playing and his nigh light was on.
- I went out of the room and sat on my bed!
- Charlie played happily in his cot for about 10 minutes. I don't mind this, as long as he's quiet and eventually goes to sleep then I don't see this as a problem.
- After 10 minutes, he started to whimper.
- The whimpering turned to crying.
- Crying turned to screaming. The screaming got so bad at one point that he was coughing and making himself choke.
- From the moment I put him down awake I checked on him every 4 minutes for 20 minutes. After that I extended it to 5 minutes.
- After 48 minutes his cries became a whimper and within 2 minutes the whimpering had stopped and he was quiet - I couldn't believe it but I didn't dare go in to check him this time as I didn't want to disturb him if he was just in the process of falling asleep.
- I waited another 5 or so minutes, checked him and he was asleep!
- So the whole thing took about 55 minutes. It was hard hearing him cry like that, but it worked - he fell asleep.

He slept until 5am! I couldn't believe it! Night two, I did exactly the same thing, he went down awake and it took 12 minutes for him to fall asleep. Night three and four was twenty minutes and since then he goes down awake and within 5 minutes, he is generally asleep. Coincidentally this has coincided with him starting to crawl properly - so I am not sure if he was in the middle of a sleep regression due to trying to master a new skill.

What we still need to conquer is that he is still waking around 1am and 5am for a feed. 5am I don't mind so much, but I really want to phase the 1am waking out. I'm going to give it another week or so and see how it's going and then make a plan from there really.

So all in all, it definitely worked for us. So far anyway. We're not completely there yet, but the situation is so much better now. I feel so much better too, less grumpy and grouchy and can actually concentrate at work and do something productive!

So yeah it was great!