Howdy.

This is going to be a bit mismatched so bear with me please.

DD2 is 10 months old. From birth to seven weeks, we had a lovely routine of four hour blocks of sleep.

Seven weeks to four months - she discovered her thumb and used it to self settle. Slept through the night and had two-three decent naps.

From four months, her teeth started trembling and she ditched her thumb. So long self settling.

From there, it's been awful. And it's getting worse. Last week I was getting 90 minutes of sleep each night. Not in a hit either. broken up over the night. In total. She's been waking 4-6 times a night for feeding for months. tried to not feed, it's worse. She feeds for a few minutes then comfort sucks. She naps twice a day, for 35 minutes each. That's it. I believe the day naps are probably my fault. We're busy with activities with DD1 and everything is about a 30-40 minute drive away. She always sleeps in the car, always wakes when we stop.

I'm tired to say the least.

For day sleeps, when we're home, I've tried setting my alarm so that I'm beside her when she stirs from that first sleep cycle. It's worked twice. All other times she simply opens her eyes and grins at me. I've waited until she shows signs of being tired, and when there is no sign of it. Tried rocking, singing and feeding to sleep, often with no success. Tried putting her in her cot and leaving her (omg the screaming!), sitting beside her, patting her back, you get the idea. It's tough when it can take 2+ hours to get her to sleep and then she only sleeps for half an hour.

If we're out, she'll sleep in the car and pram. I try to walk twice a week, two and a bit hours and she can stay asleep for two hours of that. The second the movement stops or we try to get her out of the pram or carseat, she's instantly awake and stays awake regardless of it being night or day. I hate going out at night because it means once we get home, I'm usually up for hours while she's mucking around.

Night time. Well frankly, I dread them. We have a routine. Dinner, pjs, stories with both DDs, feed. She either falls asleep during the feed or she cries until I stop trying to put her to sleep and then plays for another few hours. We don't bath at night because they hype her up.

She can then sleep for 5 minutes, 30 minutes or five hours. There is no pattern. She was in her cot in her own room. Co-sleeping for some of the night. Right now, the cot is in our room, sidecar to our bed. It has made no difference. Now she cries if she's there or if she's in my arms.

I just don't know what to do. I've tried so many different things. Sleeping bag, no sleeping bag, blanket, no blanket, my pillow (for my scent), no pillow, toys, lights, music, white noise, fan. She has never taken a dummy. Nothing seems to make any difference. And then out of the blue, she slept for two nights in a row. And we did everything the same on night three and got 90 minutes.

I don't know where to go from here. I'm not prepared to go to a sleep school because I won't leave DD1 again (she struggled terribly when DD2 was born). DD2 won't go to DH. We're coming through what seems to be the end of separation anxiety. She's not yet crawling so we're not able to physically tire her out. She eats okay and is bf.

Someone give me something else to try! I'm dealing with this on my own at nights and I have a coffee allergy so can't rely on it to keep me going the next day!