to just want someone to tell me what to do to make my baby stay asleep? Almost at the end of my tether :-(

[HollyGoLoudly1]

So my 4 month old DS used to be a great sleeper. Without any intervention he started sleeping long periods at night from a few weeks old and eventually 8-10 hours straight from about 8 weeks old. So we never had a strict bedtime or nap routine, there was no need. How naive!

Then one night he wouldn't go to sleep until almost 11pm and woke up every 2 hours. Put it down to not feeling well or teething or growth spurt. Poor lamb. Then the same the next night. And the next. And it's been 3 weeks now. There was one infamous night where he didn't sleep more than an hour at a time. There is nothing obvious causing him to wake. He is no longer as happy or playful during the day either since this all started. I'm exhausted and regularly in tears in the run up to bedtime at the thought of another awful night. Me and DP bicker constantly because we're both so sleep deprived.

The only thing that works most of the time is breastfeeding him back to sleep, which I know is a bad habit to get into. He will always go back to sleep but will never stay asleep Please does anyone have any advice, suggestions or success stories? Or even just a hand hold to get me through another undoubtedly horrible night?

What about one of those monitors that are linked to a pad underneath baby. The ones that sound an alarm if they don’t detect heartbeat. I think my sister had one of them for her son. Would that help if you can only get him to sleep on his tummy?

Get yourself one of those angelcare mats. They alert you if baby stops breathing and get some sleep!
I learned the hard way. Baby one I walked and rocked and fed back to sleep. She didn't sleep through til she was 2.5.

Baby 2, I figured out she responded to white noise, slept on her front with arse in the air she took a dummy. I never had the stomach to let her cry it out. If she ever needed settled I only picked her up when she was distressed. And then only til she was a bit calmer. Then back in the cot with my hand on her back.

During the 4 & 9 month regressions I had several nights lying on the floor for hours with my hand on her back and the white noise on.

She has pretty much slept through since the 9 month regression ended. It is bliss.

He can roll tummy to back and his head control is quite strong. He can easily do mini push ups and holds his upper body up for several minutes when we're playing. Feel a bit more logical about it today (as opposed to 3am last night!) so we've decided to give tummy sleeping a try with one of the angelcare mats. Put him down on his tummy tonight + it was the quickest/easiest he's ever fallen asleep. Ever.

The SIDS risk massively drops at 4 months OP. It was enough for me to stop following the rules to the letter in order to get some sleep - we moved DD to her own room because a) she sounded like a farmyard and b) we were waking her up repeatedly. If he can roll from front to back I wouldn't be too worried personally. Hope you get some sleep tonight.