4 month DS is waking almost every hour after midnight.
It is killing me. Sat here in tears of exhaustion.
He is EBF and won't take a bottle. He goes down around 8pm then wakes at 12am, 2am, 3am, 4am...every hour until 7am.
This is not his usual pattern - he previously did 8pm until 6am with one or two feeds.
When he wakes at night I can only get him back to sleep by feeding him / rocking him.
He sleeps in his cotbed in our room. He's not too hot or cold. Our room is dark. He has a white noise thing that we play when he goes down to sleep.
I'm praying this is the four month regression or a growth spurt. I'm battling PND so finding things tough enough as it is without chronic sleep deprivation on top. I can't catch up on sleep during the day as I have toddler DD to look after.
I'm sure he's getting to the lighter part of his sleep cycle, waking and not being able to settle himself again. But this doesn't help solve the problem 
How do I get through this? Will it ever end? Is there anything I can do? Any advice or hand holding would be gratefully received.
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How the hell do I survive this? Need a hand hold.
StrangeDream · 17/05/2016 05:04
Do you have a dp? We started to take turns - night on night off, sleep downstairs on sofa with ear plugs - when we had those phases of poor sleeping. If breast feeding just do the actual feed but not the settling/changing etc. It doesn't last but it is hell - even without pnd!!! 
And/or do you have friends who can have toddler for a couple of hours? Can you get other help, like a cleaner for a few weeks? Maybe do only things that are minimum effort for you, like play centres /play groups during the day?
Possibly not what you want to hear but only because you said PND is in the mix, I think you need to make every effort to get your ds on to the bottle. I had PND twice. The first time I didn't know any better and soldiered on through with the breast feeding and it is ultimately what broke me. It was horrendous. You're saying he won't take the bottle. I've read before that if a baby is hungry it will feed, from anything (take proper advice obv that though!). It will be horrible and distressing for you going through the transition but he won't remember a thing. Once he's on the bottle you can establish a good routine with your partner and do the feeds 50/50 over night, on weekends (if poss in your situation). Presuming your ds is otherwise healthy, looking after yourself while you've got PND has to come first and foremost, you are no good to anyone otherwise.
Lots of and 
for you. I was exactly the same with dd. It was horrendous, I had pnd as well and the exhaustion just adds to how awful you feel.
It gets better though. I know it sounds ages away but my dd started sleeping through reliably at 20mo and looking back, this coincided with all her teeth coming through.
I co-slept with dd when she needed it and gave her nurafen as well (calpol didn't seem to touch it).
Try just to get through the day and nap when he naps. I think a lot of people experience this and it's really tough x
Gosh, thank you all so much for your replies. You are very kind.
(I'm on the app so can't see them all as I type this; will try and remember all the points!)
gray funny you should say that- I did just turn the white noise on again when he started stirring and he stayed asleep. Will try that again tomorrow, thank you. So sorry you're going through the same. It is utterly soul destroying.
Co-sleeping doesn't seem to work for us and I'm not sure why. I actually wake up more if he's in the bed next to me.
DH is wonderful but rubbish at settling DS I don't understand it but he is. I am trying so hard to get him onto bottles. I wish I'd never bloody breastfed him now, which makes me feel awful.
for you, it's so hard to have a bad sleeper. We have tried everything I can find and not much has made a difference to his sleep.
I've kind of accepted it and switched my focus onto how we can survive it! Here's what works for us. It hasn't made him sleep any better but it's just about saving my sanity. Most days.
In the mornings, ds wakes at 4. I keep him in bed with me until 5 the dh gets up and takes him downstairs for an hour at least, he starts working on his email (dh, not ds) and gives him breakfast. I sleep (this is the only unbroken sleep I'm getting.)
Ds is chronically tired, so I try very hard to give him two solid naps and a catnap a day. I go out with the pram or take him to bed and try to nap too
On weekends, dh and I do shifts for half a day. One looks after ds while the other sleeps
It is very difficult and I dont think there are any magic solutions. Some babies respond well to specific techniques and others don't.
Do whatever works for you. It's tough
Again, thank you all so much for taking the time to reply.
If I'm honest I'm not sure I have the balls to do CC. But then I guess I might just get to that point?
Same with getting him on the bottle. I'm going to go out on Saturday morning, not far, just into town and leave him with DH and a bottle. If the shit hits the fan then me and my boobs can come home.
Will be trying the white noise thing tonight.
I also think I'm going to wean at five months. I know it's not a sleep cure but fuck it, at the moment I'll try anything.
Because he's so tired during the day he's being really 'challenging' too. I'm trying to remember this will all one day be a distant memory but it's so hard when you're in the thick of it.
for all those living through this too.
Just done the CC - could see I was heading for trouble mentally if didn't do something so although I kept putting it off as, like you say, I didn't have the balls, I chose a date and just went for it.
As Minipie found out - went loads better that could ever have imagined, DS is much better for it. But it is controversial subject so it's not widely discussed :-/
For me it really did get to the point where I thought 'something's got to give' so that made my mind up for me really.
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Don't do cc.
Please try him with a bottle of formula.
Good luck op
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