Hi Santosha,

I've posted previously in your threads because my bub is similar age and around Christmas time I was also tearing my hair out over her sleeps. Whatever method we used to get her to sleep- walking, rocking, patting, feeding etc- when we stopped doing it she'd usually wake up soon after. She wasn't getting the sleep she needed and I was exhausted. My understanding is that babies are more likely to stay asleep if they continue to sleep the way they fell asleep. So if baby falls asleep in your arms and later stirs and sees you are not there, they wake fully. If they fell asleep in their cot and stir and see their cot again they learn to settle themselves back to sleep. With my DD i decided to set up some sleep 'cues'- dummy, sleeping bag, cuddle and song in a darkened room (ours)- then put her in her cot and walk away. Then i'd wait outside the door to see how she went. If she 'grizzled', i'd give her a bit longer to self-settle. If she cried, i'd go in after 1- 2 minutes and pat her bottom, make soothing 'shhh shhh' sounds, help her hold her dummy in place (shee seemed to like this and would hold my hand and babble and eventually close her eyes while i did this) or let her hold my finger. (I tended not to pick her up because i've been told sometimes they find it more upsetting to be picked up and put down again than if you settle them in the cot. Having said that, I do lean over the cot and sort of cuddle her in the cot ITMS and i do pick her up if i feel something is wrong or nothing else is working. eg some days I realise i've made a mistake and she is not ready for sleep because she needs a top up of milk or is trying to poo and i will get her up and try again later). After a couple of minutes of 'settling/soothing', i would leave the room again and wait outside the door for another 1- 2 minutes. I've been told that staying in the room to settle for a really long time is not as effective as going in and out. I found this to be true for me. It gave me brief breaks from settling her and so I coped with it better and she was not left to cry for long. I felt it also made it clearer to her that it was sleep time in her cot. After a couple of visits DD seemed to work out what she had to do because she would see me and roll onto her side to be patted and calm down. She started falling asleep while i patted her, and then, after a few days, I could put her down and walk out and she would put herself to sleep. Her sleeps also got longer and although sometimes she only does 45 minutes, she started doing 1.5- 2hr sleeps and sometimes even longer. My mental health got much better with it. (Unfortunately we are battling a bit again because she has been constipated and miserable since starting solids and that has messed up her sleep a bit but at least i know now that if she doesn't sleep it isn't because she doesn't know how to. That helps me to know when something else is wrong and i can try to help her with that. Eg she's still hungry so i top her up with milk).

I'm sorry you got an unhelpful response from QEC staff member. I've heard good stories about friends' experiences at sleep school (both public and private sleep schools) but there will always be some for whom it isn't helpful or a particular staff member you don't like. I hope you can find better sleep ASAP but if you do go to sleep school i hope it's a really positive experience and that the staff member you spoke to was one of those random 'there's one in every organisation unhelpful people' rather than the rule.