My 21 mo dd has never been a great sleeper. She was starting to sleep through the night a couple of weeks ago, but then last week she started waking again within 5-10 minutes of being tucked in during the night. This cycle of tuck-in, sleep, wake & scream would continue for up to an hour and a half. For the first few days of this, we though it might be teething or something, so we gave her pain medication and tried to give a little extra soothing. When she started asking for rocking (and water and lullabies) through the screaming, though, we figured we were being manipulated.
So we started WI/WO Saturday night. (We still give her pain meds, but three of the four teeth have already broken through.) Things from then until now have just gotten progressively worse. Her normal schedule is to wake between 7 and 7:40a, nap at 12:30p for an hour and a half to an hour and 40 minutes, then bed by 8p. Since we started the WI/WO, the night wakings have gotten marginally better (last night she got up twice, and only required two WI/WO for each before she went back to bed), but everything else is falling apart.
Her naps were fine (she went down easily and slept through), but since starting WI/WO at night, the naps got shorter and shorter until she wouldn't go down for a nap today, and after finally going down, she only slept 45 minutes. She has always gone down fine for her bedtime (with the occasional exception), but now she is taking between 10 to 30 minutes of WI/WO to go to bed. And last night she woke up and hour and a half after bedtime and required another 25 minutes of WI/WO before she would settle again. (This in addition to the other two night wakings mentioned.)
I don't know how much more of this I can take. I know they say give it two weeks, but after 4 nights, what little I had going for me in her sleeping routine is gone. I really feel like she is just manipulating me & my dh (she'll try calling for both, even though we don't switch in the middle of an "episode", and she try asking us to do different thing, like get water or rock or lullabies), and I wonder if going in there every time only fuels her crying because she knows she'll get us to make an appearance.
The only way we got her to sleep through the night consistently in the beginning (even though she has been on EASY since day 1) is to let her fuss it out around 10 months. It wasn't that painful (she never fussed for more than 10-15 minutes, although her "fussing" cry sounds like other children screaming murder). She quite sleeping through the night when we moved into our new house, but we've been here for 4 months now. And she was starting to sleep through the night just a couple of weeks ago.
Now that she is older, her cries are louder and more agitated, and when she uses words to call us in there it is hard to ignore, but if this WI/WO thing doesn't work (which it isn't so far), I am having a hard time seeing any other alternative to CIO. I know some people go off on the "trust" issue, but to be blunt, I am tired of being guilted into doing something that isn't working for either my daughter or me. I have enough built-in guilt as a mother.
If someone could PLEASE offer some advice, condolences, or just plain understanding and sympathy, I would appreciate it. I am halfway through a second pregnancy and my dh works full time and has a major career exam coming up in a few months - we NEED her to finally sleep through the night consistently.
