I turn to you, oh wise internet

I have never before known of a child so dead set against sleeping through the night as my child. I swear we really have done it all.  He's got a set of lungs that you would not believe, plus he's stubborn and I'm generally really just tired and prone to giving up at night.  It seems like there have only been a handful of nights that he's slept straight through - usually after a doctor's visit and he gets shots.  So, unlike most moms, I live for those appointments.

Last night he was up 4 times, usually it's three like clockwork.  He gets up around 11, 2 and 4 then up for the day at 7:30/8.  He goes to bed well - we finally got that done after what seemed like forever.  We have our little routine, a book, a bottle and bed.  He's not cold, scared or in pain.  He would just like a bottle and a snuggle and then he's ready to dive back into the crib.

While we tried the crying it out thing, our thin walls and the baby upstairs were unfairly punished.  That poor girl and all her peoples were up and had to suffer through the banshee like screeching as we did.  It was summer, so I turned on our bedroom a/c to high and put a pillow over my head.  Hours later, we caved.

Whenever he cries, I have this full body cringe reaction.  I can't help it.  Now, I have no problem ignoring the screaming and thrashing when it's a tantrum (which we're now getting more of as that 2nd birthday approaches... yyyaaaay.)  It's the at night crying.  I've found that if we just haul our saggy, tired butts in there and give him an ounce or two of milk, and put him back down he's fine.  If we try anything else, he's up again in 15 minutes.

I don't think it helps that in the back of my mind is all the time he spent screaming and thrashing around as an infant and I was trying to tough it out - let him cry it out - only to find that he was in major digestive pain.  Sigh.  Mother-guilt is kind of a bitch.  I still feel awful for not helping him sooner (and a million, trillion thank yous go out to my friend Katie that helped me diagnose his dairy sensitivity.)

Thankfully, he's grown out of that. Now he can eat cow milk and cheese like nobody's business.  I still augment with goat dairy which seems to be even better on his tummy.  Maybe I should try goat milk at night?  Or... something?  I don't know.  

My mom says that this is what my sister was like as a baby.  She's now almost 30 and still doesn't sleep well at night.  I think she might have some other issues that contribute to that - but not at all reassuring to me.

So, exhausted this morning, I turned to the internet to find my solution.  The most popular result came up, "Warm lavendar bath, followed by massage and low toned soothing." 

"We're trying to get him to sleep not sleep with him," Matt snorted.  Yeah, not so helpful.  

What I did see, was a whole lot of message board discussions about the topic.  Turns out we are not alone.  There are a lot of really tired parents out there stuck with not good sleepers and we are all exhausted, doubtful and a little beat up about it.

I don't know what to do.  He's napping now.  He seems great in every other way.  A few times now, he's even started indicating when he was about to poop or pee.  So, next on the giant list of potential failures is potty training.  Yay!  First I have to go look it up on the web, because I honestly have no idea what I'm doing.