WANTED: Old Baby Back

If someone sees an eight and a half month old baby that is ridiculously adorable but who has bad hair, please return to owner.

I don't know what happened to my child who used to know how to go to sleep, but if you see her could you please forward her my way?

I used to have a child who would nurse, rock in the chair for a few minutes, and lay down in her crib while awake. She would watch her mobile for a few minutes and then fall to sleep without so much as a peep.

Now? Now we repeat that exact same process and it all starts out just fine. Until the part where she decides she is ready to go to sleep. At that point she sits up and screams. I come into her room, lay her back down, give her a binky, turn on the mobile, rub her tummy and "shush" her over and over. If I even think about stopping any part of that and she is not completely asleep she sits straight up and screams.

Rinse and repeat.

Once I finally get her to sleep she is usually good. For about an hour. Then she does the same thing. Each time she does it as the night goes on it takes less and less time to get her back to sleep. Finally (most nights) she does it for the last time at around 11:00pm and manages to make it through the rest of the night. Last night she did it at 10:00, at 11:00, at midnight, and then when she did it again at 1:45am I decided she must be hungry (see previous post regarding supply issues) and brought her to bed with me and nursed her. She slept very soundly there for the rest of the night.

Most nights she stays in her own bed after about 3 or 4 wake-ups where I have to use the above process to get her back to sleep. What the hell? Separation anxiety? Just blatantly lost the ability to fall asleep on her own? WHAT?!?!?!

Am I doing the right thing? Consistency is key, right? At some point she will remember how to sleep, RIGHT? I have read a lot on the Internet and it appears this age is pretty normal for some serious separation stuff that messes with sleeping. But damn.