13-month-old has an extreme reaction to her crib. Ferber was a disaster. Where do we go from here?

I’m honestly at a loss and hoping someone here has been through something similar or can recommend an affordable sleep consultant.

My daughter will be 13 months old in about a week, and we have struggled with independent sleep for a long time. I would really love to get her sleeping in her crib, but our attempt at the Ferber method was horrible.

She screamed and cried at a level 10 for an entire hour. This wasn't fussing, protesting, or an on-and-off cry. She was genuinely hysterical. She eventually passed out from exhaustion, woke up 30–45 minutes later, and immediately started screaming again.

The next day she was completely exhausted and her face was swollen and red from crying so hard. I know consistency is important with sleep training, but after seeing her like that, I couldn't bring myself to continue. It didn't feel like normal protesting that we just needed to push through.

The other issue is that she seems to have a strong reaction to the crib itself. We've tried making it a positive and safe place during the day with absolutely no expectation that she sleep. I've tried putting her in there with toys and snacks while I stay right beside her and interact with her. As soon as she realizes she's going into the crib, she starts crying and will not settle no matter what I offer her or what I do, even though I'm right there.

I've wondered if she could have some kind of negative association with cribs. When she was only a couple of months old, she was hospitalized for about a week, including several days in the ICU. I obviously have no way of knowing if that has anything to do with it, especially since she was so young, but I can't help wondering about it given how strongly she reacts to the crib itself.

We've considered a Montessori-style floor bed as another option, but my home office currently has to be in her nursery because we don't really have anywhere else for it. That has made fully baby-proofing the room and transitioning to a floor bed difficult.

At this point, I feel like we may need to work on her simply being comfortable in the crib before we can even tackle falling asleep independently. I really need help figuring out what approach might work for her rather than repeatedly trying methods that result in her becoming hysterical.

I'm open to working with a sleep consultant, especially someone experienced with babies who have extreme reactions to Ferber/CIO or who can help with crib acceptance and gentler sleep-training methods. I'm on a very limited budget, though, and unfortunately can't afford $200+ for a single consultation. If anyone knows of someone who offers affordable support, lower-cost packages, payment plans, virtual help, etc., I would be incredibly grateful.

I'd also really like to hear from parents whose baby reacted this strongly to the crib or to traditional sleep training but eventually learned to sleep independently. What actually worked for you?

I'm genuinely just a very tired mom trying to figure out how to help my daughter sleep independently without putting her through what happened with our last attempt again.

Schedule: She usually wakes around 8:30-9am. Until recently, she was pretty consistently taking two naps. Her first nap was around 10:30-11am and she'd usually sleep until around noon. Her second nap was around 3:30-4pm and she'd wake sometime between 4:30-5pm. Bedtime was usually around 8-8:30pm. Right around 12 months she suddenly started refusing one of her naps some days, so lately her schedule has been all over the place. I'm not sure if she's starting to transition to one nap or if it's just a phase. She's also teething and getting really close to walking independently, so there's a lot going on developmentally right now

Bedtime routine: We usually start winding down around 7pm and she has her milk before bed. Right now she is used to falling asleep with either me or her dad rather than falling asleep independently, which is obviously one of the things we’re trying to change.

Sleep training: Not currently sleep trained. We attempted Ferber, which is the experience I described above, but stopped after seeing how intensely she reacted.