Hi all,

My DD has started fighting sleep during the day, and I'm finding myself starting to get a little frustrated - not at her, but at the fact I get nothing done.

Background:
This is a more recent thing. 4 weeks ago I could put her down in her bouncer, flick on the vibration and she'd sleep for anywhere between 2 - 4 hours. Now, the moment I put her down from my chest to the bouncer, she wakes up.

A few weeks ago, she would happily sleep on me for hours. I could tilt back in my computer chair and have her resting high on my chest / shoulder area, and I could still use two hands to type. Now, she will do that but she is awake 15 minutes later.

Car trips used to see her sleep for the length of the trip and then some - ie I could come back from the bakery, pull her gently out of the car and put her in the bouncer once inside and she would stay asleep. The past week or so we've been waking after 15 - 20 mins in the car.

She's never slept in her cot and no matter how asleep she is when I put her down, she wakes up. I've basically given up on the cot for now. That's fine because we co-sleep anyway.

Night Times:
My problem is only during the day. Night times she sleeps perfectly! We co-sleep, and although she won't normally go down until 11pm ish (and trust me I have tried everything to make that time earlier), once we are down for the night, we only wake for a 4am feed, and then sometimes around 7/8am. We also sleep until around 11am in the morning.

So if we go down at say 11pm, we wake around 4am ish, then around 7-8am ish, and then again at 11am ish. Once I am up though, the problem of fighting sleep all day begins.

Me causing it?
I'm wondering if I have actually been causing the problem? Xmas was not something I was looking forward to this year. My sleep started to suffer in the past two weeks, and even my milk supply dropped off considerably - to the point where I was actually worried I had run out / stopped on Xmas day.

Now, part of me is almost hoping this is the problem, because now that Xmas is over, my stress levels will hopefully drop and if that was the cause, the it should start fixing itself, right?

My biggest worry is that, that wasn't the problem. And if it isn't, then I've got no clue what it might be. I've gone back to the fear of "rod for my own back" because I can't allow her to lie there and cry. I've started trying to get her to sleep alone in my bed, and although I can sometimes get her her to sleep and sneak out, I never get more than an hour before she wakes up fully because I'm not there. Sometimes I don't even get the hour.

At 10 weeks old, which I know isn't THAT old, I still thought I would be able to put her down during the day for a nap. All Xmas day my SIL kept telling me that her DD's cot was there, go put her in the cot, etc. It was hard to keep saying "no no, I'm fine" because I couldn't tell them that she doesn't sleep alone. (MIL is all about controlled crying, SIL isn't much different)

Seeking any and all advice, tips, tricks or information. Or even just to hear that this is normal and will pass. I'm really really worried about the whole rod thing as each day passes...