We ended up doing something similar with DS at 10 months because I was at absolute rock bottom after months of trying everything to get him to sleep better.
We went to sleep school and we did what they call 'responsive settling' - which basically is listening to your baby and responding and settling the baby in accordance to their level of distress. ie if bub is happy, leave them. If bub is upset and crying go in and settle. There were no 'rules' about time intervals, how many times we could go in, we could pick him up, make eye contact, talk to him and cuddle him etc but there was definitely crying involved.
BEST thing we ever did. He started sleeping through the night for the first time EVER, started eating properly after months of trying to get him established on solids (which was important for us as I was returning to work and b'feeding) and his development took off in leaps and bounds in the following months. It wasn't easy to do and I felt guilty for a while but seeing the dark circles under his eyes disappear and removing the stress and exhaustion that was affecting our whole family was so worth it.
I guess some people don't understand what sleep deprivation can do to a family and that sometimes you can try every other method and nothing works. We tried co-sleeping, patting, rocking, singing, playing music, feeding to sleep, everything we could think of and it just. didn't. work.
Good luck!
Last edited by Willow; October 29th, 2009 at 07:22 AM.
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