4.5 month old WILL NOT SLEEP. At all. Waaah.

[Truffkin]

So, my DS has been a decent sleeper since birth. On demand breast fed some days every hour or two, some days four hourly. He would nap in the day, often settling himself to sleep either when playing on his mat / gym or if sleepy, I would put him in his cot and he would nod off. For the last month he's had bedtime around 7.30pm preceeded by bath and feed and if he didn't nod off during feeding, he would be drowsy and nod off soon after being put in his cot. Night wakings for a feed usually 11/12 and 3/4am and getting up around 8am. I thought I was very lucky.

Ha ha! For the last 2 weeks he has simply refused to nap in the day, whether put in his cot, rocked, driven in the car, pushed in his pram: nothing works to get him to sleep! At night the routine is unchanged but as soon as he is put in the cot he cries, and if I leave him to see if he will settle he is crying up until he needs a lot of soothing to calm down.

During the night he is waking regularly (hourly / 2 hourly) and screams, sometimes for 45 mins to an hour at a time.

Is this just 4 month sleep regression or do I need to be doing something differently?

I would say 4m sleep regression

All 3 of mine were like that (not in the day though) but were absolute nightmares until 8m, 11m and 13m respectively (esp the last 2, no.1 wasn't as bad tbh)

You can try all the tricks in the book but IME nothing actually works until they are ready to sleep better...

I did do CC with DC1 and DC3 though. But it's not everybody's cup of tea

Sympathies, it's shit!

Thanks Bernard. It's a bloody good job he's cute, that's all I can say

Have you tried the pick-up / put-down thing to get him off? I can't remember what it's called but think Tracy Hogg had it in the Baby Whisperer. Lay him down in his cot for nap after your usual soothing routine. He cries. You pick him up. As soon as he stops crying in your arms, you put him down again and so on until he lies there for a bit longer than 2 seconds before cranking up again. It can take loads of goes but I found it worked a bit better than walking out of room and letting him scream for 10 minutes flat.
I had a TERRIBLY dramatic DS1 who took ages to get into a good napping routine. He screamed every time, including bedtime but it did stop by 5 months and now at 17m he's great and settles himself back in the night. In fact, it's worse if we go to him... Good luck.

Think it's probably the 4 month sleep regression too, have you read the info on Kellymom? What are you doing if he's screaming for 2 hours in the night? Will he feed? Have you read Dr Sears 31 ways to get your baby to sleep and stay asleep too or the book by Elizabeth Pantley, No Cry Sleep Solution?

With you on the napping

LO is terrible, screams the place down tired but will not sleep. I end up witg every kind of soothing I can think of sometimes, music, holding something, rocking, singing to him, dummy etc!

The only time he'll ever go own his own is 2/3 of the time in his pram, sometimes (today!) I can still be leaning over the pram pushing it, holding dummy and stroking his little head!

Thanks god he's do bloody gorgeous!!