Hi Sandra - Just quickly wanted to give you my best wishes and let you know that there is light at the end of the tunnel! I too have a spirited baby girl, she is now almost 8 months old and we had a very similar problem with her.
She was never a good sleeper and always seemed to nurse much more frequently than any of my friend's babies, at least every 2 hours day and night. This seemed normal(ish) when she was a newborn but as time wore on she seemed to be getting worse. She had been virtually impossible to get to sleep, rocking, bouncy chair, always swaddled, would only sleep on me etc. and then at about 9 weeks old I started nursing her to sleep. It would take 45 mins but at least I got to sit and hold her which was so lovely and I didn't have to listen to her cry. But then at around 3 months old, she started waking more and more at night. She would wake every hour, sometimes less through the night and would not go back to sleep unless I fed her. Sometimes she would just stay awake but other times she would SCREAM! I was a nervous wreck by the time she was 5 months old, I was so exhausted from all that feeding and lack of sleep. Also, naps were a nightmare, I would spend far longer getting her to sleep than she would actually sleep for, our darkened bedroom was my prison.
Anyway, enough about all that, I'm sure you know how it is! I had read BW and was trying sh/pat which worked for a while but then she started to resist it or become reliant on the patting, pu/pd never worked. She was super alert and would stare at anything in the room (light on the baby monitor, a crack in of light from the blinds etc.) as a focus as if to keep her eyes open! Don't know if this is your little one or not but mine was always very active and seemed manic at times from birth.
So, there are 2 things that I feel helped turn her around. The first is that I took her to see a good cranio-sacral therapist. After one session, she dozed off in her pram without crying and totally relaxed for the first time ever. That night, I nursed her to sleep but she was limp in my arms after 11 minutes, she had never felt so floppy to me. Over the next days and nights it continued to get easier to get her off to sleep. She was still waking lots through the night however. This was when I decided to teach her how to fall asleep without my help. I didn't think it would work, but I did the gradual withdrawal method. I changed her bed time routine so that we looked at a book together after her feed so she stayed awake, then I put her in her cot awake but sleepy. I sat by the cot and held her hand and kept telling her it was ok. The first night she cried for about half and hour, then whimpered for 10 minutes, then slept. The second night, still holding her hand, she cried for fifteen minutes. On the third night she was asleep in 2 minutes!! Then night by night I gradually moved away from her until after about 2 weeks I was putting her into her cot and kissing her goodnight and walking out the door and she was going to sleeeeeep! Amazing!! From there, she started waking a little less frequently and I would make a plan before I went to bed like - 'if she wakes less than 3 hours after the dreamfeed then I will tell her to go back to sleep'. Because I knew and she knew she could fall asleep without me, it was much less stressful than before. She would wake and I would say 'shhhh, back to sleep now baby', sometimes it took a while but there was no panicky screaming like before.
Sorry - this has gone on far longer than I intended. I just wanted to let you know that I thought things would never get better but I found a way that really worked for me and went from feeling quite depressed and sad to so happy and proud of my beautiful baby girl. It took time, a month or more, and she still wakes once at night for a drink but I have my life back now. I wish you the best of luck. I know how tough it can be but just follow your instincts and you will get through it.
S.
