Tell me how you survived the 4 month sleep regression

[Lemondrop99]

In the thick of it here. How did you come out the other side? Did your baby just grow out of it? Or did you have to actively do something?

[Lemondrop99]

Anyone? Just wanted to know if it's worth stressing myself out trying to actively address this or whether just to ride it out and it'll pass?

I keep reading conflicting things about it. Some say it's a development phase and will pass when baby is ready. Lots of sources say it will only go away once he can completely self settle 😕

[monkeyted]

Sorry to hear you're experiencing the four month sleep regression, my LO is just coming up for 8 months now and we also went through this. I know how hard it is when your baby suddenly doesn't sleep and you feel so confused about what to do. I also read lots of conflicting ideas, so I guess it's different for everyone, but here's what I can say about our experience...

LO was a pretty good night time sleeper until exactly four months. Suddenly she was waking every few hours and not going back to sleep until she'd been fed and settled, a little like she had been as a newborn. I didn't actively do anything about it, as the one thing I'd been learning prior to this was that seemed to just right themselves eventually. So I stuck it out, and I have to say it took a good few months, but she got there and now mostly sleeps 7pm till 8am (since she turned 7 months). LO self settles by sucking her thumb and did this for a long time before she slept well (e.g. to get to sleep initially) - so whilst it certainly helps, for us it wasn't the only thing she needed.

[INeedNewShoes]

I helped DD find her thumb to suck. I think this did help. Other than that I followed the one piece of useful baby advice I recall being given... Every day is a new day. Don't expect something that was a problem today to be the same tomorrow.

I swear my baby can sense when I'm expecting something not to work so I try to go into everything assuming she'll do it.

[Lemondrop99]

Ha, I can relate! Mine didn't sleep more than 30 mins in a row yesterday then suddenly pulled at 1.5hr nap out of nowhere this morning!!! Messed everything up and now we have no chance of making our baby sensory class. Oh well!

How did you help them find their thumb? My DS had a dummy but we ditched it cold turkey this week as he was getting hysterical as he kept pulling it out. He chews his fidtscall day but isn't doing well at finding his hand for comfort. Yesterday he sucked hid fingers in bed at lunch time but not really since. I've tried guiding his hand to his mouth but he just cries loudly and thrashes around 🙄 Wish he would find his fingers.

[Lemondrop99]

Ergh this is awful. He's starting to scream at the start of most naps. It's almost like he's getting worse (he was not too bad the first day we ditched the dummy, which is confusing). The two times I managed to get something into his mouth (once his thumb, once a little twist of muslin) he went to sleep within seconds. But that's generally not working and trying to encourage him to suck anything is just making matters worse. So I do think he's getting stressed because he wants to suck but I'm struggling to get him to suck anything else.

Thing is, I'm loathed to go back to the dummy now. We've made it this far. We ditched it Saturday night and apart from the settling issue, his sleep has improved. Yesterday he did 3 x 1.5 hr naps!!! That's literally unheard of.

It seems like

Give the dummy back and he'll settle himself to sleep calmly but will pull it out repeatedly and get hysterical over that. We'll also have months reinsterting it, which is hard work as it doesn't always work, he just spits it. I could tolerate a 2 second pop back in, but it wasn't working out like that.

Oh the flip side, stick to no dummy and we're starting to get hysterics at the start of most naps. However once he's asleep, his sleep is improving. He woke several times last night but went back to sleep quickly with just the muslin for most of them. After his 2am feed, he calmly rolled around in his crib for 15 mins then put himself to sleep. So he IS capable of doing it calmly, so I really don't want to go back to the dummy.

Thing is, when he does he hysterical, he either wants to feed to sleep or we end up holding him and rocking him. We've not had to do this since a newborn and I'm really worried about making even harder habits to break!! But I hate hearing him cry.

I honestly don't know what to do for the best.

[Callamia]

It will pass. Cuddle him if it helps.
Cuddling a baby is not a bad habit, I promise.

[Lemondrop99]

Just to add, I don't leave him to scream but any efforts to settle him in the in the cot (patting, shushing etc) Steve working most the time so we end up having to hold him. Even when we pick him up, he thrashes and screams for a few mins until he passes so it's not even that he wants to be picked up specifically.

[afrikat]

I embraced co sleeping so I could feed him and doze but honestly I just focused on survival! It lasted about 6 weeks for us and he didn't sleep for more than 90 minutes at a time. It was so so hard but did get better eventually without doing anything specific

[Lemondrop99]

Steve? Ergh autocorrect. Can you tell I haven't had any sleep.

I don't think he's that fussed on the cuddles. He's not really a cuddly sleeper (never had been, he just grew out of it at around 7 weeks which made me sad at the time!), he doesn't fall asleep in arms unless he's hysterical.

I just keep reading that this won't pass while he relies on parental input to sleep. But I don't know whether I'm just stressing us both out unnecessarily. Ergh 😖 Hate this

[Lemondrop99]

You know what, I really just need to take a deep breath and step back a bit. Sleep deprivation has driven me slightly loopy.

From 8 weeks, DS has been a chronic cat napper (20-30 mins!). This week, he's finally started to link sleep cycles. He just went down for this nap with hardly any protest and has stayed asleep for 1.5 hrs. Last night, he managed to go back to sleep quickly a number of times without feeding or rocking. We're definitely making progress and actually I'm really pleased with his settling abilities for his ages. These stupid books and online articles are driving me mad, scaring me that I'll never sleep again and preventing me seeing the positives. I think I'm going to step away from Google and not sweat it too much when DS needs a bit of a hand. He's still so little, we only just ditched the dummy and actually he's doing really well.

It's amazing how a hot shower (even one at midday!!) can clear your head

[Jellybabie3]

@Lemondrop99 your doing better than me. still feeding to sleep here. Im just too exhausted to do otherwise

[Lemondrop99]

Ah Jelly, it's bloody hard work, isn't it It's so hard to know what to do for the best. If they really need to feed all those times, then I don't want to deny him milk. But then I worry about creating sleep associations so he can only go to sleep by feeding. But then again, if that's the only way anyone is getting any sleep then maybe you've just gotta make life as easy as you can for now.

[Harrythomas2]

Urgh. We're in the midst of it all now. He used to sleep 7pm-6am with maybe 1 dummy run. At 19 weeks (17 corrected) he's asleep at 7 then up at 9, wants a feed at 10, asleep till 2/3ish dummy in sometimes feed asleep till 6. Naps aren't even worth closing his eyes for. I want me sleeping happy baby back 😓