Sleep Deprivation

Everyone tells you how exhausting it is to have a newborn baby, how to expect your newborn to wake every four hours, how a full nights sleep is well, something you dream about....

But what no one tells you is that almost two years later your little darling may still not be sleeping through the night!

That is where we are (argh).  Isobel is 21 months old and rarely sleeps through, my eldest was and still is a great sleeper, she slept through (and yes by sleeping through I mean from the 10.00pm dream feed until 6.00am) from 6 weeks and now goes to bed at 7pm and will easily sleep until 8am if Baba doesn't wake her up. I thought stupidly that Baba would be the same and up until she was 5 months old it appeared that she was going to be and then she started to wake up and hasn't really slept through since, she does occasionally but more often than not she wakes up. 

Its exhausting! I've tried controlled crying tough love and it works for a bit but before I know it we are back to square one and doing it all over again. I've tried not letting her have a sleep during the day but that makes her worse ??? The only way I can get her back to sleep is to give her milk, I've tried water and she looks at me like I am deranged. so I am at loss at what to do to make her sleep and funnily enough my sister has the same problem with my nephew who was born a week after Baba. 

If anyone has any miracle cures I am all ears!