I'm hoping that someone can help, because 4.5 DD's nights are slowly destroying us.
She was a great sleeper between about 8 & 13 weeks - 8pm-5am. Then a trip away rolled into the heat wave rolled into 4 month sleep regression. The past couple of weeks it's got really bad, e.g. last night she woke every 2 hrs after midnight. DH is amazing, and gets up with her in the morning between wake-up and morning nap (about 7ish - 8.15ish), but the lack of a decent stretch of sleep at night is taking a big toll. She's ebf and 99.9% of the time the only thing that'll get her to go back to sleep is breastfeeding her. I'm a bit delirious and feel nauseous/ jittery most of the time.
So, we need to do something to help DD learn to sleep better at night. When her sleep first went to pot, I was bringing her right next to me in bed and co-sleeping, but I think that made her wake more frequently in the small hours, as she could readily snack on the boob right there. I do think, in general, her increased night-waking is also related to food as she's reverse-cycling a bit - she's distractable during the day and seems to tank up at her bedtime feed and then the one she now does between 11 & midnight. But then, after that midnight-ish feed, she'll often wake between every hour and 2 hrs until morning. I've tried all I can to make her eat more during the day, but she's not that interested, so I think I need to first start feeding her less at night to make her more hungry during the day, iyswim.
A bit of context - she sleeps in a co-sleeper crib next to me. Bedtime routine is story, bath, feed (propped up on my bed), then she goes down between 7.30 and 8pm. She usually falls asleep on the boob and I put her down asleep, although she has occasionally self-settled when she's woken up being put down or hasn't fallen asleep on the boob.
So - what do we do? Ride it out by just committing to co-sleeping until she's through the regression? My concern with this is that I'm setting up a night-snacking habit. Or is it time for gentle sleep training and teaching her to self-settle? I was thinking pick-up-put-down, which I've been sort of trying for daytime naps in her cot. Will moving her to cot in her own room help? Or will I just get less sleep because I actually have to get out of bed to feed/ settle her at night? And how on earth can I tell when she's genuinely hungry during the night and when she's just crying for boob out of habit? Should I just be steely and put her in own room and then make DH go in and settle between hours of, e.g., midnight and 5am, if she wakes?
Sorry for epic post. I'm at the end of my bleary-eyed rope and need to do something to change our situation soon before I completely lose it!
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Please please HELP! 4.5 MO sleep - co-sleep or gentle sleep training??
9 replies
CityDweller · 03/09/2013 09:39
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