I'm exhausted! Please help!

[olivetshka]

Hi,
It's me again. I didn't show up for a long time, but still hope somebody could help me.
My daughter is 2 year and 3 months old now and she never really slept through the night yet. I know I made a lot of mistakes, like carrying her in my arms to sleep when she was an infant, dancing with her or rocking her.
For a really long time, since she was 7 months old, she was sleeping in our bed. Last summer she started to sleep in her own big bed we got for her. She was still waking me up few times at night and I was always there.
Then I started to sleep with her, cause I was so tired of sitting next to her bed and giving her my attention. It was quite good for some time and we both were ok with that. But after few months she seemed to wake up more often, screaming and crying. Sometimes she didn't even want me to touch her or talk to her. And finally I didn't feel so comfy at all, cause she was crawling all over me, banging her head over mine etc.
I decided to get my life (and my lonely husband in our bed) back.
I have read Tracy's book "The baby whisperer solves all your problems" and I just loved it. I have it for over a year now, but never had enough desperation to do something. And now it's time...
I took a chair and I sit next to her bed for a week now. And I think I cave in...
First days were nightmare, but now seem to be better. BUT...
She wakes at night every 1,5 hour. I go to a chair and stay there untill she falls asleep. But sometimes I have to give her hug hundred times, a kiss, or she wants me to hold her hand lately. Last nihgt I spent an hour sitting on a chair and holding her hand (!)
I know I shouldn't make an eye contact, a talk and avoid touching her, but she screams so horrible then. And I have enough...
I am exhausted now, because since she was born I didn't sleep even 5 hours in a row.
What should I do with this night wakings? I have to tell we all sleep in the same bedroom - on separate beds, but still together (we're going to come back to Poland in a few months and we rent the place).
I will be appreciate for any ideas.

[imsmum]

Oh Anna you poor thing!  Have you tried the mattress method--ie.  put a mattres next to her bed and stay there all night then slowly move it toward the door.  There are some good posts on it here--look for some from Luna's mum--and I'm pretty sure that  it's also in BW Solves All Your Problems.

[Florencia]

Anna, i think we might have something to work with when you say she wakes every 1.5 hours at night. Some toddlers have this timing for a sleep cycle, and i found my son would wake at the 1:45 mark for example when having sleep issues. So im thinking here that Natalia is waking exactly at the end of her sleep cycles and finding hard to go back to sleep. You say you have the "solve your problems" book and there, the Wake To Sleep Method is thoroughly explained. It consists in interrupting your child's sleep (yeah, i know it sounds strange but i swear it works) BEFORE she wakes instead of waiting for her to wake. You go and wake her (or sort of, gently rubbing her back, not fully awake, just enough for her to rub her eyes), say at the 1 hr. mark and that way she can go easily back to sleep for another sleep cycle. By doing this, you help her to break the vicious cycle of waking at the same time and teach her how to get back to sleep. You can use the pat/shsh to help her going back to sleep and also be very careful and try not to put yourself in a difficult position, that is if you find it hard to stay awake holding her hand till she falls asleep, then don't do it cause she might get used to it (start as you mean to go on) and only help her in the way you think you can go on; for example i did pat shs and once ds was settled i kept shshing cause i could do it no probs (i even learnt how to shs in my sleep LOL) and eventually i started to stop the help and ds started to stop needing it.

Do the Wake to sleep as many times needed for the wakings she has (that is, if she wakes twice at night, do it twice) for 3 nights in a row. Then stop doing it and if she still wakes, go back for another 3 nights till it kicks in.

[olivetshka]

Imsmum, thanks for your reply.
I didn't use matrress or blow up bed, because we're already sleeping in the same room and most of Natalia's life we used to sleep together.
Tracy in her book sugested to skip the blow up bed method and go to the chair phase, what I did.
But I am simply scared of moving toward door, because of her crying and screaming. Right now she seemes to be ok when I sit next to her bed and - when she's having trouble put herself into sleep - she asks me for my hand. She seems safe and comfortable with it and I could do that during she's falling asleep, but I'm mad when I have to sit with her at night for an hour or more. That's why I think I cave in. I have made another prop.
Sometimes, after this hard week of teaching her how to sleep right, she can do it all by herself. And it's amazing, because it's so new for us!
I can't figure out how to act at night - she can't be scared, because she can see us in our bed, but when she wake up, she sit and start crying and calling me. I try to say "it's ok, just go to sleep, I'm here", but she ask me to sit in a chair, what I do. And then she falls asleep easily or it takes more than hour and she needs my hand for example.
Anyway, thanks for your response, I will try to make things better.

[olivetshka]

Anna, i think we might have something to work with when you say she wakes every 1.5 hours at night. Some toddlers have this timing for a sleep cycle, and i found my son would wake at the 1:45 mark for example when having sleep issues. So im thinking here that Natalia is waking exactly at the end of her sleep cycles and finding hard to go back to sleep. You say you have the "solve your problems" book and there, the Wake To Sleep Method is thoroughly explained. It consists in interrupting your child's sleep (yeah, i know it sounds strange but i swear it works) BEFORE she wakes instead of waiting for her to wake. You go and wake her (or sort of, gently rubbing her back, not fully awake, just enough for her to rub her eyes), say at the 1 hr. mark and that way she can go easily back to sleep for another sleep cycle. By doing this, you help her to break the vicious cycle of waking at the same time and teach her how to get back to sleep. You can use the pat/shsh to help her going back to sleep and also be very careful and try not to put yourself in a difficult position, that is if you find it hard to stay awake holding her hand till she falls asleep, then don't do it cause she might get used to it (start as you mean to go on) and only help her in the way you think you can go on; for example i did pat shs and once ds was settled i kept shshing cause i could do it no probs (i even learnt how to shs in my sleep LOL) and eventually i started to stop the help and ds started to stop needing it.

Do the Wake to sleep as many times needed for the wakings she has (that is, if she wakes twice at night, do it twice) for 3 nights in a row. Then stop doing it and if she still wakes, go back for another 3 nights till it kicks in.

Florencia, thanks.
I will try to do shush/pat thing instead of holding her hand - maybe it will work. And I try Waking to Sleep method, as you suggested. Natalia wakes up every 1-1,5 hour beginning from 11.30 pm and she wakes up in the morning before 6 (!). During the first days of teaching her how to slleep with this chair method, she slept 7-8 hours during the night and only 30 min. nap. We both were terrible tired.
Right now is little bit better but she still doesn't have enough sleep - she can wake up in the middle of the night and be up for an hour or more. And still wake up at 6...
I try to keep her everyday routine, I bath her at 6 and then it's time for books, cuddling and talking. I have no idea why she's that way...
She always looks like she needs some part of me to put herself to sleep - my hand, my ear (earlier), hugs. Or maybe I'm weak...
But thanks anyway, you helped me so much.