I'm currently looking after my cousin for the next 4-6 weeks and I've just finished setting up her room.
She's never had her own room before and is used to sleeping in a caravan where she's no more than 4 feet from someone.

She can't keep sleeping on a mattress in my room, I need to get her to start sleeping in a room because she is getting older.

At the moment she is sleeping on the mattress in my room. Last night I tried putting her to bed, I made it a positive experience, gave her a nightlight and read her stories, but every time I walked away she followed me. And screamed if I tried to put her back. So I waited for her to fall asleep in my room and carried her to her bed. She woke up an hour later and screamed the house down.

She has abandonment issues, her mother used to leave her while she was sleeping and she would wake up alone. So I'm not going to be too pushy if she doesn't cave in straight away.

I was thinking of sleeping in there with her on the floor. I can do that for a while, but I need her to learn how to self settle.

I can't even pry the bottle away from her. She refuses to sleep without a bottle. So she wakes up during the night like a baby and can't go back to sleep without a bottle.

I look after her all day, and I have a small time frame to sleep at night because I have to take DP to work and bring him back in the early morning. And I'm exhausted.

How can I Teach her to self settle? I can do it with a baby no worries, because babies don't have abandonment issues! But she has a lot, and I can't let her cry alone, I can't close the door or anything like that, because she won't trust me any more.

Any suggestions?