Thank you so much for trying to help me out! It's getting worse now with her up 5-7 times the past 2 nights!
Her cry varies, sometimes it starts off fairly quiet and more of a grumble and then you can tell she's become more awake and the cries become louder. It sounds more like a shout sometimes rather than a cry of pain, like she's woke up and doesn't know what to do. Myself and my OH take it in turns to go in and we usually wait about 5 mins, any longer and she is shouting/crying so loud she'd wake the street!
She goes down at around 6.45-7, sometimes straight away, usually after 20 mins or so of shouting/crying. We usually wait about 10 mins before going in which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't! A lot of the times when we do go in she's moved around in her cot and is wedged with her cuddly toys at the top. She then usually sleeps well until 11pm ish when the first cry will happen then last night she woke again at midnight, 12.40, 3.15 and 5.15. She was awake on and off then until 6.15 when she properly cried out. She's just learnt to crawl and all we can hear is her moving around the cot and banging her legs against the bars - this then keeps us awake too!
As for her bottles, she had colic when she was younger but she hasn't been diagnosed with any other allergies/probs. I've mentioned the bottle issue to the health visitor and she doesn't seem to bothered and says maybe she just doesn't like milk.
At bedtime myself and my OH will bath her together which used to go well but because she's sleeping so bad at night she's been getting increasingly grumpy. We then alternate each day who takes her upstairs and gets her ready whilst the other prepares the bottle. We then both sit on the floor with her in her room with chilled out music on and play with her music box and read her some books. She's never chilled at this point and just squirms and wants to crawl around or sometimes just grizzle. The books do grab her attention though. Once we finished reading and put her in her grow bag she really kicks off screaming. One of us will then sit with her with the lights low/off and give her her bottle. Sometimes she's relaxed but rearely does she fall asleep now, she did used to though. Nowadays she wriggles, squirms, cries and is just generally not happy! We do persevere though and sometimes she will calm down and drink the milk OK. We then lay her down with some chilled music playing, she's never asleep and sometimes doesn't even appear drowsy even though she's been yawning a bit earlier. We would then kiss her goodnight and leave the room. Sometimes she nods off but a lot of the time she will start crying, as I said earlier. If we stayed and shh, patted her she would just get more stressed as she can see us. A dummy soothes her, which we use during the night, but I don't want to get into this habit at bedtime too!
She is just so hyper and moves around constantly - I'm not sure how much more sleep deprivation we can all cope with!!