DD stopped day sleeps before she turned one, and has always been a poor sleeper. We ended up co-sleeping just so we could all get some sleep.

We always had to sit with her to sleep, she'd never drift off on her own. We went from her only falling asleep in my arms, to only falling asleep in DH's arms, to falling asleep in the cot provided one of us was sitting beside her and touching her arm or rubbing her back.

It went on for months. I remember sitting beside her until 10-11 at night, trying to get her to sleep and feeling like DH and I had no life together because one of us was always trying to get her to sleep (she'd go to bed around 7.30). And then as soon as we went to bed, she'd wake up. I wrote posts about it at the time.

We moved on to me ignoring her as she was falling asleep, still sitting in the room with her, but she'd fall asleep quicker than if we were giving her attention. Not long after that, I started to leave the room when she was awake and she would fall asleep within a few minutes. She got a lot better about actually going to bed once we took the sides off the cot.

Full nights sleep though, I can count on one hand. A couple of days before NYE, she slept through so from that point on, when she got up at night, I took her back to bed. A couple of times, I lay down with her, but mostly now I just pop her back to bed and leave the room again. We've had three nights this week where she has slept through. Last night she woke up crying and I left her and for the first time she self settled and went back to sleep. Now that she's older, I've been explaining that she can get back out of bed when the sun is shining again and giving her masses of praise when she stays in her bed until morning. She's two months shy of turning three though.

It's so hard. I haven't had anyone to help me as DH sleeps so deeply that I can wake him up, tell him to go to her and he immediately flakes again and has no recollection of me ever waking him up. He was helpful in the evenings, but those middle of the night wake ups.....oh boy. I don't know how I would have managed if I wasn't SAHM. Good luck with it, hang in there