Apologies for the lengthy post, but we're at our wit's end and I feel like the more details, the more helpful the advice can be...
We have a 3 month old and a 2.5 year old (both boys). Our eldest was (I am realising now) a very good sleeper right from the beginning, but we haven't been nearly so lucky the second time round. The baby has only just turned 14 weeks, so I know he's still quite young, but we'd really been holding out until 12-14 weeks in the hope of some improvement, and instead he just seems to be getting worse!
He's been difficult right from the start not only to get to sleep, but to get him to stay asleep. So despite our best intentions, he's ended up in our bed - as I just cannot face the hours and hours it takes to get him back down at 1 a.m., 3 a.m., 4:30 a.m. etc... He will sleep if I lie down with him and nurse him, but if I leave him in the bed on his own (making it as safe as possible with a light blanket and pillows at the edges, etc), he wakes up only minutes after I leave. He's also fall asleep if my husband carries him around, but as soon as we try to put him in his moses basket or cot, he wakes up and cries and cries.
He seems to like movement, so he will take cat-naps in the buggy, but we have to keep putting his dummy in over and over again to get him off, and even this doesn't always work. And then he wakes up as soon as we get home, or to playgroup, a cafe, etc. We don't own a car, but the few times that he's been in one, he will fall asleep if I am there to put the dummy in at the start, and replace it as needed. Other than that, he'll fall asleep if I carry him in a sling and he uses a dummy against my chest - but my back is really giving me trouble from carrying him around like this as he's quite a big boy, and I'm not that big myself....
We've tried everything we can think of to get him to be able to fall asleep on his own - he's never liked being swaddled, white noise hasn't seemed to make any difference, we use black out blinds in his room and our own, it's quiet and an appropriate temperature, he has his dummy but only really takes it in the buggy or sling (and that's if I replace it quite a few times to get him off), he also has a little soft snuggly blanket/toy to hold that his older brother loved, we use a lullaby as a cue for sleep with our baby monitor... But none of these things work. I've tried to give him as much of a routine as I can manage with the toddler when I'm on my own - he has a bath most nights and then I nurse him in his room. But it takes literally hours and hours to get him to sleep so I have to put the toddler down first and then we're all overtired, and when my husband gets home from work, he takes over since I can't take it anymore.
We have tried letting him cry it out, and although it worked once or twice at the start a couple of weeks ago - more often than not, it didn't and now it won't work at all. He just gets angrier and angrier until he's sweaty and red in the face and swallowing so much wind, that when we finally go in (anywhere from 20-50 minutes later), then we have to calm him back down and start all over. If it sounded like he was starting to calm down and whimper, I'd leave him longer but he just gets more and more worked up and it's awful to listen to and he doesn't sleep anyway.
So now I feel like we're training him to cry and cry and then eventually we'll come in and he can fall asleep on one of us - which is exactly what we don't want to train him to do - but we cannot figure out how to get him to sleep otherwise.
Right now - he'll have short (hard-won) catnaps in a moving buggy, or while we're walking with him in a sling. Otherwise, I have to lie down with him or he falls asleep while my husband is holding him and walking around. Then sometimes, but not all the time, we can get him down into his moses basket without him waking up. But even then - he's often up again 15 minutes later, and we have to start the whole process again.
He does spit up quite a lot (esp compared to my older son, but it doesn't seem to distress him), and he needs to be winded after a feed - but other than that, it doesn't seem like there is anything medical going on, as he'll fall asleep if he's lying down with me or being carried by daddy.
Again, apologies for the lengthy post - but any and all advice, suggestions, etc would be very much appreciated. We are desperate to teach him how to fall asleep (and stay asleep) on his own!
Thank you.
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