12 month old separation anxiety night wakings?

[beaglemom]

My dd is 12 months old. She has never been a good sleeper- had reflux for many months so she would nurse, fall asleep in my arms, and I had to hold her upright for a while. She has been getting up fairly consistently every 2 - 3 hrs atnight all along. (My 12 month old newborn!) I am exhausted. In the last week or two she has been up every 45 min - 2 hours. Plus, she fights bedtime like crazy. There were a few nights when we ended up letting her play (big mistake, but we were desperate). Here's the thing. A friend sent me the BW Answers your Questions book and the ideas seemed sound. I tried PU/PD. However, she squirms, screams, and arches her back even when I was holding her (the "comfort" stage). The book said not to fight a baby, to put her back in the crib if she is resisting. So I did. She screamed more. If she stood up, I'd do the PU portion, but she screamed the whole time. So there was never really a time I was 'supposed' to hold her. Clearly I have read this wrong.  Can someone PLEASE tell me how this is supposed to work with a baby who I cannot get to calm down? We suspect this is separation anxiety to the extreme. My husband decided we needed to cio, and the last 2 night have been horrible, She screams for 3 hours. I KNOW that is not the way to go but we are beside ourselves. I really don't agree with this cio business. TIA for any advice!!!

Background info:
She is breastfed 4 times during the day (wake up, pre-nap, pre-bed) then had been nursing during most night wakings. She takes a full feed at night wakings.
She is on all sorts of solids- 3 meals a day plus an afternoon snack.
Not drinking whole milk yet, takes water in sippy cups and regular cups
Naps: sometimes twice a day. Usually 30 min- 2 hr in the am, and 30 min - 2 hr in the pm. Naps have only really become consistent in the last month or so. Before that she would nap for maybe 30 min once a day when I was lucky.
Teething: possibly beginning eye teeth, but nothing shows on the gums yet. she's got all the others though.

General Routine:
7 am- up, nurse
8am- breakfast
8:30- bath (seemed too stimulating for nighttime- she LOVES the water)
playtime
9:30- nap
playtime when she gets up
noon- lunch
playtime
2- nap
playatime when she gets up
4- snack
5:30 dinner
7- ready for bed- reading, pjs, diaper, walk around to quietly say Goodnight to things outside and living things in the house
7:30- sing lullaby while nursing to sleep
usually up by 9 pm, 11, 12, etc....

[M and N's Mom]

Welcome to the Boards and I'm sorry about all the difficulty you are having.  You must be exhausted.

Here is a link about doing pu/pd with age adaptations.  You should not be doing the pu part at 12 months...too difficult and stimulating.  Scroll down to the part from 8 months to a year.  https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=69177.0

Also, if you want to teach your  DD to sleep independently, you will need to move the nursing away from sleep times so she learns how to go to sleep without you helping her (nursing her).  This will be a very difficult task as she has relied on you to put her to sleep her whole life.  It is, however very possible if you are consistent with sleep training.

I'm glad to hear that she is becoming more consistent with naps as good daytime sleep leads to good nighttime sleep.  If she doesn't nap well during the day she could be OT which contributes to NWings.

Hopefully someone else will jump in here with a routine that might work for you.  I forget what my DS was doing at 12 mos...sorry.

[beaglemom]

Thank you for your reply! I do need to work on moving the nursing away from sleep times. I will take a look again at the link you posted to get a better idea of how pd should be working at her age.  Hopefully she'll begin sleeping better!