I’m at my breaking point

It's ok to set boundaries around sleep if it's not working for you! If you can hire a sleep consultant that is a social worker it might be covered by your benefits. It was life changing for us and I have no regrets

First thing to address, if you are having those intrusive thoughts you should see your doctor. That is nothing to brush off, especially postpartum! We didn’t sleep train, but I did help teach her to call back asleep during naps by modifying the bedside soothing. We would lay in my bed and just hang out as she rolled around, maybe cried for a second or two, and I just soothed her without picking her up but laying next two her until she fell asleep. Either transferred her or landed there the whole time while she was napping. Did that for every nap for a week and now when she wakes up in the middle of the night she has those skills but we didn’t have to use CIO.

I felt the same, and so we sleep trained, even though I didn’t want to, and it was life-changing. There was one night of him crying and every night since then he has gone to sleep peacefully and seems so much happier himself. If he wakes up, he just rolls over and settles himself back to sleep instead of crying for us, which kept all of us up at night. I really do think it was better for everyone.

Honestly, sleep training is the best way out. But first seek help, you can’t go on like that even if you need to hire someone for a few nights to get proper sleep plus talk to your healthcare provider. I’ve sleep trained both of my kids and my baby has been sleeping in his own room since he was 6 months old. It’s hard for a couple of days but around day 3-5 they will fall asleep with minimal or no cryong. He’s almost 10 and he doesn’t cry when I put him down to sleep, he self soothe and falls asleep within minutes. You are not “damaging” your kids for doing that. Both you and them will get better sleep at the end of it. There’s lots of different approaches, I’ve gone with the one when I come back and check on the baby after 2,5,10,12 minutes and then continually every 12 minutes but I didn’t pick him up just calmly reassure him. If he was uncomfortably crying then i picked him up, soothe, sometimes nurse, and then back to the crib. I believe it’s called a Ferber Method.

I am pretty anti-sleep training and I cosleep with my 10 month daughter in order to manage the frequent wakings. If sleep training is what you need to do in order to function and and be okay, you should try at least. I would recommend checking out the sleep training sub on Reddit. The pinned advice gives a good mix of options and the frequent commenters/mods can give really helpful tips and feedback. It doesn't have to be CIO or nothing.

(Also, what temp is it in your baby's room? It was 20-21 in mine and we recently bumped it up for 23. We went from 5-7 wakings most nights to 2-4.)

My first was a terrible sleeper and it turned out to be oral ties causing tension in his face and also trapped muscles. He had his tongue divided and body work with a chiropractor which resolved it. Maybe be worth having him assessed if you haven’t already