Hiya Heather,
Just waned to drop you a post, sorry I'm a bit late .... but just wanted to let you know that we had a very similar situation and how we're starting to solve it....(lol, I'm not qualified to give advice - I've been the worst person at saying "yeah def tonight we're gonna start sorting this" and I've never followed it through)
I posted a few weeks ago and got some good advice ... some of it worked, some of it didn't, so we tweeked the bits that didn't and we seem to be getting there. I guess every lo is different
. Sorry Heather, this is a bit long winded, hope you half an hour to read it lol.
Our dd Anya is 18 months old and for around the past 8 months has slept with dh & myself (we moved house about 4 times, totally disrupted her routine, she had no idea if she was coming or going...anyway, we eventually got settled and a few weeks ago, we started putting her into her own room).....
OMG, do I ever know about the screaming......yeah, like someone is killing them.....our lo was choking, being sick.....it was awful....and rather than go through that it was easier for Anya to sleep with us. We have another lo enroute ... but not due till October ... but I thought I'd better start to get this sorted before then.
Anyway, we started with spending alot of time in her room, playing with toys etc....just so she would become used to being in there (did this for about a week)....then we started putting her in for her day time nap ..... (is you lo napping during the day?), I would give her her pinkie & thumpy (lol, her lovies).....and had a disk with soft lullaby music, so I would play that, and to start with I would stay with her (patting / shushing / saying it was nap time / stroking her cheek with her lovies etc...) till she went to sleep - sometimes there were tears etc... but I got a good piece of advice and that was to have a good active morning, so she was nice and tired for nap time....so we always tried to go for a walk, get some fresh air, around 10am....when we came back, I'd give Anya a snack, she'd have a little play and then she was showing signs of being tired around 11 - 11.30ish. Sometimes she'd nap for an hour and a half, sometimes 20 mins
. At this point we were still taking her in with us at night (baby steps I thought - do things nice and slow)...
After a few days of doing that, I started doing wi/wo with daytime naps, it took a few times...Anya would cry when I left the room, kept going back in settling her etc....but she came ok with it and I could put her in her room at nap time (say "snoozy time, c u soon, mummy loves u etc...) and leave and she would drop off herself, no tears ... she would look around her room for a while (still had her little lullably disk playing softly in the background). Once we got that sussed, I thought right, time to tackle night time
. I was dreading it...
Anyway, we did the night-time routine and put her in her own room .... to start with she would rumble about her bed for about 40 mins and evetually crash out (around 8.30ish) sleep till around 11pm, then she'd waken...and I'd take her in with us for the rest of the night. We started doing the same at bed time - wi/wo .... and she got used to getting herself to sleep but she was still waking at 11ish. So I thought, ok, we're half way there - just need to get past the 11 o'clock wakening and not taking her through with us.
That was the hardest part - so I took my mattress and quilt into her room, when she woke at 11, I'd go in and settle her (much easier said than done), 1st night, was 45 mins of screaming blue murder (I though child services was going to appear any minute, as I was sure it sounded like I was abusing my lo), it was so hard, I was crying aswell, even the dog came into Anya's room to see what was going on.....but I just kept giving her cuddles, reassuring her etc.... and eventaully she settled ... I slept on the mattress beside her and was probably up every half hour settling her (and every half hour I thought, I'll just take her through to our bed and do this tomorrow.....but from somewhere I found the will- power to carry on.....it's not easy). 2nd night was similar...but she maybe only cried for around 30 mins, 3rd night when she woke I put on her lullaby disk and a small low glo light that we have (casts small shapes on the wall) and this seemed to take her mind off of screaming as she seemed to have something to focus on when she woke.....she dropped off to sleep again within 15 mins. 4th night, I left the lullaby disk on repeat to play all night (volume was very low) and left the little low-glo light on and she did wake, but put herself back to sleep within minutes (no tears)...at this point I was still in her room on the mattress. 5th night, I thought okay....I'm gonna put on her disk and light put her down and I'll go to my own bed, she slept right through - well she did rumble a few times during the night - but when she woke - it was for seconds and she went away back to sleep herself.
She's now been sleeping in her own room, on her own, no tears nothing for 4 nights (ok, it's not a great deal of time but from where we were - it's fantastic progress), we use her low-glo light and her lullaby disk on very low - I know these are props and we'll need to deal with that also later, but right now, she's sleeping in her own room, in her own bed (all be it with the help of a disk and a soft light), no night wakings, if she does she can settle herself....and that's a far cry from where we were a few weeks ago.....I probably could have done things quicker/easier.....I think I did gradual withdrawal & wi/wo all round the wrong way...but Mari is right it's about being consistent.....
I'm so sorry for rambling on and on Heather.....and I don't know if you can take anything from the "War & Peace" that I've written...but just know that I'm thinking of you, you're not alone and I just wanted to let you know what worked for us (or has worked over the past number of nights - lol)....
Take care, please let us know how you're getting on.
Michelle
