When did baby sleep get better for you?

[sunlightflower]

DD2 is 4.5 months and we have hit the four month regression. It is horrendous. Up every 1.5 hours/2 hours all night long.

Formula fed. Trying every trick in the book, white noise, blackout blinds, plenty of daytime naps so not overtired etc etc.
Cosleeping doesn't help, neither of us sleep any better.

DH is a key worker so it's just me looking after her and her older sister full time and with this on top of lockdown I think I may actually be going insane.

Can anyone give me hope that this is going to get better soon? Her older sister never did this so I'm clutching at straws a bit and I know that all babies are different. I'm just desperate!

My eldest had phases of waking all the way until she was 3 so I'm realistic about when I can expect her to actually sleep through. Plus phases of bedtime battles, early waking etc.

It's the every 90 minutes/2 hours which is killing me.

Just keep going mama.

My baby woke every 2 hours from 3-6 months. It was hellish and I was in a haze the whole time. Breastfeeding and husband had work so I mostly did nights on my own.

Put baby in own room at 6 months and there was a remarkable difference - started doing much longer stretches. By 9 months was regularly sleeping through.

Work on the coping mechanisms for now. On a weekend can partner take baby down for first bottle and let you get an extra hour? Make sure you get time for a bath/ shower every day. Coffee and chocolate to keep you going - now is not the time for silly diets.

3.5

Years, not months

Ours got a chunk better at 18 months, but they weren't reliably sleep it through until they were 3.

It was bloody awful!

Co-sleeping is what worked for us.

Sorry you're going through it - it's a bloody killer. I found there was no magic bullet, just had to let him get on with it and sleep whenever I could. Coffee, telly for the older one, this will pass.

Four month sleep regression lasted five weeks here - the longest five weeks of my life. I don't know if it was coincidence or not but it seemed to get better when I stopped lifting her as soon as she cried and waited until she was fully awake. She was better at self settling than I realised I think. She still wasn't a good sleeper though and we had plenty of bad nights.

The step change for us was moving her to her own room at 7 months. She was up every two hours in our room one night and slept 11 hours straight in her own room the next night.

After that, she slept through maybe 4 nights out of 7 on average, the bad nights trending to cluster around illness or teething which is fair enough.

Hope you get some improvement soon, it's soul destroying.

@mindystclaire that helps, thank you.

Interesting about waiting until she is fully awake. I've been going in quite quickly to try and resettle but maybe I need to try not doing that for a bit. Just worried about her waking up the rest of the household.

DS - woke every 45minutes until he was 8 months. Then every 90 minutes until night weaned at 14 months. He then woke between 2 and 4 times a night until 2.5 when he woke once or twice a night until about 3 weeks ago. He's 4.5 now.

DD- woke every 3-4 hours until 10 weeks when she slept 10pm -7am until 8 months when she woke 2 or 3 times (7-7). She is now 17months and sleeps 8-6 9 nights out of 10.

As you can see, massive difference!

DS1 was bf and woke up every few hours for at least 6m, then a couple of times a night, then had 1 wake up per night when was over 1, he still wakes up once at around 12am and he's 4

DS2 is also bf and only woke up 2/3 times per night from newborn, and from 4m only woke up once around 11ish then sttn. He is 5m now and wakes up around 11ish for a last feed then sttn till around 7.30-8am.

I'm convinced DCs personality is the main thing with sleep rather than what the parents are doing or how they are fed.