Wondering if anyone can give me and advice or guidance regarding my 4 month (18 weeks) DD sleep...
She's ebf and has never been a great sleeper but recently nothing seems to keep her down. I realised around 4 weeks ago she was probably chronically over tired as she would rarely nap in the day and only sleep around 9hrs at night- waking 2 hrly for feeds. We co sleep with a cot which is flush to our bed, so she has her own wing of the bed so to speak. Meaning I can roll over and feed her led down then roll back over to my side of the bed, which optimises sleep as far as possible!
Over the last 4 weeks I've worked hard to get her into a routine of napping after 1.5-2 hrs awake. She will take her morning and sometimes second nap of the day in the cot (with white noise) the rest however are taken in the sling with me continuously walking her. She is fed to sleep at every nap. She will nap occasionally in the car seat, after a feed ( I time these car seat naps of course) but it's hard to get her down and she awakes as soon as car stops. All cot and car seat naps are 20-45 mins. I can keep her asleep for longer often in the sling, up to 2 hrs but I have to keep moving continuously - she knows if I stop of even 'fake walk'!!
Up until a week ago her bed time was around 10pm and from 9:15 ish she would doze on the boob in the lounge with us. She would sleep a 3-4 hour chunk (this is after I sorted the nap situ) before waking to feed every 2 hrs until waking at 8-9am. However around a week ago she started becoming very cranky and upset around 8pm, very hard to distract or console and giving all the signs she needs a sleep. So bedtime moved to 8pm ish and the sleep chunks there in remained the same, occasionally with a cheeky small feed when I came to bed around 10:30 thrown in. I finally felt like I had done something sleep related right - she had moved be time to a more appropriate time and was sleeping closer to 12 hrs at night (waking for feeds still of course) and napping for 3-4 hrs per day over 4 naps.
And of course it's now gone to pot! She is teething as well. First tooth has now broken through and second bud is visible under gum but not sure it's quite out yet... I've been giving her calpol before bed to help with this (tried teething rings and powders and gel too).
She will now fight most of her naps. It's takes between 30mins and 1 hr to get her down and she is rarely going past a 30 min nap even in sling. At night it takes at least an hour to settle her then she is waking every 30 mins. Just as I think she is dropping off she is ping awake again. She literally sleeps on my boob the whole night once she finally does go down (around 12) and is waking hourly.
I've tried her with numerous dummies over last 3 months intermittently and she won't accept any. She won't self soothe to sleep or when she awakes, if I don't comfort her with boob she will become more and more agitated until she just screams her head off. I don't want to do any form of controlled crying with her - not sure that's my cup of tea and she feels too young. I know I've probably made a rod for my own back with feeding to sleep but I'm feeling so stressed I don't know what to do. I've read about shhh pat and pick up and put down etc but I feel at the end of my tether as it is and like I have no mental (or physical!) capacity and I know she will be very resistant to a change in approach so to speak. Or I think she will and I'm too exhausted to pluck up the courage to try perhaps!
My DH works long hours and I'm pretty much doing 100% of child care. I feel very stressed with things at present and like my life is totally ruled by battling to get her to sleep for naps and at night. I know though if I give up she become very over tired and unhappy and inconsolable. I feel stuck between a wall and a hard place and it's really getting me down.
I'm happy to keep feeding her to sleep in principle, I just want her to actually go to sleep and stay that way for at least a couple of hours at night!
I guess what I'm asking is, is this 'normal'?! Is this the dreaded 4 month regression? Or the teething? Or both? Should I change approach or preserve and ride it out? Please help!!!!!
P.s sorry for absolute rambling and lengthy nature of this post, I felt like a lot of back story was necessary but it probably wasn't!
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4 month sleep regression? &/or teething?!
6 replies
Bearberry · 29/08/2016 11:05
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