Dr. Greene,
I am so exhausted with all of the things we are dealing with with my 9 month old son. He completely slept through the night from 2-4 months. At 6 months when we started baby food, he became restless at night and started screaming uncontrollably every time he was put in his crib at NIGHT--daytime he was fine.

I unfortunately admit though that I have created this monster because he has had problems with food--vomiting uncontrollably for all grains (doctor thinks it may be celiac's) and absolutely hates eating at all unless from mommy. I don't want the kid to starve so he gets breastfed and a lot of the time he falls asleep immediately afterwords. Which to my detriment, I never fought in the past because I was dying for the kid to finally go to sleep. Now, he cannot self soothe and does everything he can to keep himself awake during feeding--leaving him awake for hours on end screaming if we put him in his crib.

At this point, we have a 9month old baby that can't take a bottle, refuses any type of baby food, has serious signs of celiac's disease and an exhausted mommy that has encouraged his screaming by giving in and letting him sleep with her if he fights for long enough. I don't know what to do. There is so much contributing and I get scared letting him cry it out because of all the eating issues and potential allergies. I just don't want him to be in pain.

At this point, we tried the cry it out method quite a few times and it did not really work because there were spurts of illness that I couldn't let him cry it out. We are now on a strict schedule and have been for a couple of weeks of when he eats/sleeps/takes naps (only falling asleep after eating or in the car). We are feeling like prisoners in our own life because if he even falls asleep in the car for 5 minutes, he will not nap all day and struggle going to bed at night. Before bed, we give him a bath, change him in his pajamas, read him a book, he eats from mommy, and falls asleep, and as soon as he gets laid in his crib--hours of screaming unless we pick him up (which I have given in). I have shown my frustration and even anger through raising my voice and telling him to go back to sleep when I am very exhausted--and that's not me in my normal state of mind and I can't imagine it's very calming for a baby. It just gets so hard to stay calm when you're so frustrated and exhausted. And it's hard for him because I haven't been consistent because of illness.

I'm feeling quite hopeless and don't really know how or where to start. However, this is really harming my husband and I's marriage for obvious reasons. So we need to find a solution. Is this sleep problem beyond repair? And I am I going to be breastfeeding him in college? ha ha

Thank You
Sincerely,
AN EXHAUSTED/CONFUSED MOMMY