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Have you thought about what method you’re using? We did Ferber which is essentially crying it out with interval check-ins. My oldest was tough to sleep train in part bc she would cry and get incredibly upset (angry?) if you didn’t respond immediately to her crying. What worked for us was doing Ferber with check ins up to 10 min intervals. If we let her cry for more than 10 mins, it became almost impossible to calm her down and she wouldn’t fall asleep. But as long as checked in on her at least every 5-10 min, that seemed to keep her calm enough to fall asleep within 30 min of being put down. It took some time to sleep through the night but it got easier for her to fall asleep without fussing after a couple weeks. Good luck! If you’re interested in Ferber, you can either read the couple relevant chapters in the book or just look online (a ton of resources summarize it and include a chart of the suggested intervals).

My son is like this. He also can take hours to go back to sleep once he is angry. He really loves people - wants to be right next to us at all times - and really, really loves to bf. And no one in the house is sleeping when he's upset.

Do you want to teach her to fall asleep on her own? Or night wean? Or both?

Night weaning I went with a very gradual approach (we started around 10.5 months) cutting down the time on the breast at each feed until he naturally dropped them. It worked pretty well with fairly minimal screaming, though there definitely was some. It took around a month, though we are still having problems two months later with really frequent 4:45/5am wakings that don't seem to be going away no matter what. Ugh. ugh. For falling asleep on his own, we did some CIO combined with singing and playing music for him when he was in his crib to comfort him, around 5 months. He got the hang of that pretty quickly.

@bhbee: we *just* sleep trained (or rather, started the sleep training process) ten days ago with our August girl, @sweetiepie held my hand big time throughout because I kind of forgot how to do it and was super scared to rip the band aid off. we did pure extinction, zero checks--with our baby (and with my son as well) checks just made them more upset and frantic, as they usually wanted to nurse or comfort nurse or at least be held--but being talked to and not picked up, no dice. sounds like your girl might be similar. we did our son at 4.5 months and our daughter at 5 months. both were up to 3-4 night wakings per night, with both we just closed the door and painstakingly waited out the shitstorm and then were all MUCH better off getting good long-term sleep after a few bad nights.

from your comment, are you thinking that you're going to night wean as well? I don't really have a lot of tips for sleep training but continuing to night feed (I've never really understood how to decide which wake up you're nursing for and which you're riding out??) but can offer a lot of commiseration for waiting out the crying. it SUCKS, it is so heartbreaking. my babies both screamed for 1-2 hours a night, the boy took 3 nights and the girl took an excruciating 8. nights 9-10 she suddenly sttn happy as a clam, we're on night 11 now and I'm hopeful but def not popping the champagne yet.

the best suggestion I have for setting her up for success is a big tank-up bottle for her bedtime feeding. our girl is taking about 7oz (which I also put gripe water in) which she was definitely not getting when I was nursing for bedtime. I really miss that nursing session, but obvz what's more important is that she's not hungry. it took a few shitty days but she has started drinking more during the day to make up for what she's not getting at night anymore. so she's still taking the same calories, just during the day

@bhbee: I know some people for whom going to sleep on their own cuts out the night feedings in and of itself. Probably depends on how much she is taking.

I realized when I went away the first time overnight at around 8.5 months that he was taking a lot when I pumped 4 ounces right before bed at 10pm then woke up at 6 am and pumped another 15 ounces! And that's about how much he demanded in bottles from dh overnight. I thought my supply was shit but turned out he was just taking a lot of it at night. So needless to say, it was a major readjustment for us and we went the gradual route. But it also didn't bother me much until he outgrew cosleeping and concurrently became harder to get back to sleep, then I was over the night feedings pretty quickly

We had an "escalator" as well and didn't attempt CIO til he was like 15 months and got into wonky habits. It would have been torturous but I absolutely agree you need sleep
What about that Taking Cara Babies or Sleep Lady Shuffle? I haven't used but I've heard good things from here and from my stepsister who used Taking Cara.

@bhbee: To clarify, I phased out the last overnight feeding (11 P.M. dream feed) with a pumped bottle. The tank-up bottle before bedtime is different (for me!): a big pumped bottle that's the last feeding before she sleeps, which she gets every single night as her last feeding of the day. My supply with both kids at that time of day is/was low, so I personally find the pumped bottle to be a game changer for long overnight sleep.

@bhbee: hi lady! I'm sorry I missed this, I've been spotty for the past few weeks-- just remembered when I was cleaning out my gmail inbox and saw the notification email. 8:30-5am is pretty good! so how's it going now that it's been another week?

to answer your question, I phased the bedtime tank up bottle out with our son, basically, never--we did it throughout his babyhood, switched from a dr browns to a thinkbaby at 14 months, and then finally decreased ounces and dropped around his second birthday. (FWIW his ped was fine with us keeping it even longer even though he clearly didn't "need" it.) I don't anticipate phasing it out with the girl, either. we do a bedtime routine that @mrschampagne and @ChiCalGoBee: (thank you!!! it's not you seconding me, it's me seconding you!) taught me in 2016. I freaking love it, the bottle is the apex to that routine, and it helps them SO MUCH to be extra full. I dunno, I guess I'm of the mind that it's food, not a crutch, and it's not broken so why "fix" it.

maybe I missed it above, but let me ask you--is it possible for you to make her bedtime a little earlier? I know your bigger kids are probably tearing around the house and don't know if you're solo during the witching hour, but I'm wondering if she went down with a full tummy at like, 7pm sharp (??) if she'd sleep longer for you than the 5am wakeup time. I know you probably have a good reason for the 8:30 bedtime, but just brainstorming on the weissbluth sleep begets sleep maxim.

Also for commiseration/encouragement, our girl had RSV and broke her first tooth in the same week, and she was very sick for over two weeks--all the sleep training went totally out the window (I was up nursing and doing nose frida and breath counts) and then when she was finally better we were both dragging our feet about re-training because it sucks, even though she was back to her preferred FOUR night wakings. we dug in and went for it Friday night and there has been 16 minutes of crying total--12 minutes Friday and 4 last night--she STTN 7pm-6am. all this to say, I love CIO

ETA sorry for the long-winded reply and hoping you don't even need it! and same reason as chicalgobee for the bottle, my supply is always at its lowest right at bedtime even though I generally have good supply. girl never complained about not getting enough nursing at bedtime, but I KNOW she's getting more with the bottle.

@bhbee: if she's hungry, you're probably going to spend more effort fighting her than it's worth. Maybe you can try pushing the 4 am feeding later instead, little by little. She may stop being so hungry in the morning as she grows, and as solids become a bigger part of her diet, so it's hopefully a very temporary problem.

@LCTBQE: Hooray! Tank up bottles for everyone!