Still having problems - more advice/support please

[Sammiejane]

Hi again,

MJ has been having sleeping issues from about 6months (prior to that was sleeping 8pm-8am approx)

i have now managed to stop the night feeds that were started again around 7 months (1-2 overnight) and she will pat to sleep if she wakes in the night (although it can take anywhere from 5 seconds to 1 hour to get her to drop off)

BUT when she goes down for the sleep she really fights it.

i feed her dinner at around 5pm, then we have a play and then a bath.
After bathtime we move into her room and she has a play, then a feed the she plays while i read stories... by this time if the door to her room is open she will have gone out and if its closed she will have tried to open it and had a grizzle.

then we go to the bathroom, sit on the potty (we are ECing) wash hands, brush teeth then back to her room, then we change her naapy and get in her sleep suit.
Next we close the blinds, she knows at this stage and is getting grumpy.

Now we will move over to the cot and say good night to all the toys, one by one i get one out of the cot, we cuddle it and say night night and then it goes back in the cot. Lastly i cuddle MJ, say night night and she goes in the cot.
Sometimes she will go in fine and sit there and play other times it is all over straight away...

Now this is the hardest point... no matter if i pick her up or leave her in the cot and pat her, she will cry and grizzle until she is asleep. She will also arch her back to get out of my arms and stuggle and for this reason i have switched to the patting as although it take significantly longer, i am not worried about her hurting herself... It breaks my heart, why does she hate her cot so much?

The second that she wakes again she is crying - not whingy cry, standing up crying with real tears, its so hard to deal with and now i am starting to dread bedtimes as i know that she will cry no matter what i do

Sorry that this is a long post, but i wanted to say what we were doing so that maybe there are other ideas.
I am feeling like i cant cope with it anymore... and DH works until 9 or 11pm so he cant help me, so im doing it all alone and cant hand her to anyone for help

Thanks