I firmly believe that your child's personality & age has a lot to do with the methods you use to instill routine and sleeping rituals. Some babies start out brilliantly and then back track when they hit a certain age. I think it has to do with emerging personality!

Our bub is fairly placid (our first), and I keep telling her father that he's going to be in for a rude shock when our second comes along, as he/she will have a different personality...we have been spoiled with Nina!

Luckily for me, Nina has (touch wood) been very good at going off to sleep. We never vary our routine (she has a bath, then feed, then a little play. When we go to her room, her light is off, I talk to her the whole time in a low voice telling her it's time for bed, whe gets wrapped, has a cuddle and a "I love you" and is put straight into her cot wide awake (and usually smiling...in a bid to get me to pick her up...cheeky thing) Nina still has a dummy, but if she loses it during the night, she doesn't wake up for me. If she gets to an age where she does, I will consider weaning her off the dummy then. The whole ritual takes about 1 hour.

When Nina was about 2 months old we started sitting outside her door for 5 minutes at a time, and if she wasn't asleep, we'd go back in, cuddle her/settle her and leave the room again. We never left her if she became really distressed, but we could tell by her grizzles or sporadic cries that she was tired and leave her for 5 mins at a time. Within 3 days she had learned that the cot was for sleeping, and she would put herself to sleep. I don't regret starting at such a young age, and it hasn't made her anxious or clingy or stressed...so I think we did the right thing. The best thing is that now that she sleeps so well (day and night), she is an absolute joy when she is awake.

I don't know if most of it has to do with personality or parenting, but I do know that the whole thing is unfortunately a 'try and see' experience for all parents. Eventually we all have our own way of doing things and most of the time it is in response to our babies.

Good luck, I hope you sort it out soon and that hopefully it is just a 'phase' related to age and personality!!