Have you tried pick up / put down? It woked fantastically for our lo for daytime naps, she used to not nap on me now takes all her naps in her cot...but then we didn't follow through with it got lazy and i started bfing her to sleep again do now she has to be placed in cot asleep after bf. we're trying it again tomorrow hopefully I'll have the strength to continue with it this time. X

My LO has been doing this too!
Some nights he STTN, others he will scream for hours and yet others will cry for 5 minutes as we can shush/pat to sleep, i never thought of nightmares tbh!
If it is nightmares i think itd be cruel to leave them to it, i just stay with him patting him, i end up falling asleep at the side of the cot

I had a similar issue with my lo which came to a head at 7m when I just couldn't take anymore. Tried eveyrthing in the NCSS and NCNS books, they did 'ease the problem' but by no way solved it. One night of CC and that was the end. First cry it took 48 minutes. Second (a few hours later) was 12. And that was the end. Best thing I ever did. And I can look back and find numerous posts by myself criticising CC/CIO as something I would never do or consider. But hey, we live in the real world now.

EDIT - check its not night terrors. http://www.babycentre.co.uk/toddler/sleep/nightterrors/

Who knew that getting a baby to sleep would be this difficult?? Establishing BF now seems like kids play. I also feel very conflicted because I don't want to make him sleep all alone and leave him crying. Think about it, we spend our entire lifetime looking for somebody to share our bed with us, I hate sleeping alone - so why force my baby to be independent and sleep all alone? On the other hand, sleeping with us is difficult because he needs to sleep far longer than we need to, but we can't leave him sleeping on our bed by himself due to his waking and crawling..... bed rails wouldn't help either considering that he pulls himself into a standing position every chance he gets.

I have just ordered the book by Kim West, I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Your LO sounds just like mine! He fights sleep tooth and nail. No amount of nursing, rocking, shushing, patting, singing, stroking, reading, whispering, light and music show things or anything can get him to sleep. He doesn't just fuss, but properly screams from the pit of his stomach.

He also won't settle in bed with us. If we're next to him in bed, he climbs on us. If we're in his room, he crawls towards us, stands and screams.

The no cry sleep solution didn't work for us either, but only because he doesn't have a sleep/suck association to break. He just doesn't sleep.

We're at a bit of a loss here, too. We have left him to cry a couple of times now. That doesn't work either.

patch, I recall you've had lots of problems getting your LO to sleep. How's it progressing? Any better? Thankfully my LO settles really quickly in bed with us. But I don't want to be a parent who's having sleep problems 5 yrs down the line.

I hear you - my LO has never really slept that well, only when we sorted his reflux meds and gave him solids at six months did he start to sleep better. Now we realise he cries that full throttle scream when something's wrong, but we can't 'see' the problem if that makes sense... last bout of sleepless nights wasn't helped by teeth coming through, and build up to norovirus.... sorry I don't have much to add, we just crack and take him into the bed we have in his room, but the crawling/pulling up he does scares me.

We did shushing/patting in the day for his naps and it works great but at night it won't work at all, I do see why people are driven to CIO, imagine years of sleepless nights but we're not there yet. Hope you get something sorted!

I would also love to know why some babies just never get the hang of sleep?? Ours has never broken out of her newborn pattern of waking in the night, and she sleeps for two hours max. I blamed it on breastfeeding at first but she's on three meals a day now and it's never affected her sleep in the least. To make it worse she's going through a sleep regression or something now. We never had much trouble getting her to sleep in the first place, but now she acts like her cot is made of hot lava and screams the place down if I dare put her to bed. I think I've had all of two hours sleep in the past two weeks!

I never thought we'd do CIO but I'm seriously getting temped. My husband has been sleeping on the sofa pretty much since she was born. Can't say I really blame him as she'll only be nursed to sleep anyway. We co-sleep when we have to but I'd rather not. I've tried to break out of the nursing to sleep habit but we've had limited success with getting her to self-settle. I keep waiting on that magical night when she'll decide to sleep but it never arrives. I don't care if she STTN or not, but I've been getting up nearly every hour of the night for the past 8 months, and that's just too much. Maybe it is just 'her way' but when lack of sleep is overshadowing your life, what are you meant to do? I just wish she'd freaking go to bed!

It's really hit and miss - some nights he goes down like a dream and sleeps through. Some nights he takes ages to settle (like, 2/3 hours) and sleeps through. Some nights he falls straight asleep without even a feed, but wakes every 3 to 4 hours. Some nights (like last night) he wakes at 10.30 and is just wide awake until 1am. Nothing will get him back to sleep.

There's no pattern to it, nothing we do seems to have any effect on his sleep.

We had a fab few weeks at the beginning of the year, but he's had a cough for the last month, and a sickness bug these last few days, so it's all gone out the window again.

And don't even ask me about nap times!

GreenLady, I hear you. In the beginning I would neeever have even considered CIO, still wouldn't yet, but I can definitely see why people resort to it. At this point I'm coming to terms that some crying will be involved like it or not.