4.5 month is not sleeping well....

[JoInScotland]

I am really shattered. My son falls asleep at about 9:30 every evening - at least we have a bath/breastfeed/bed routine now - and will sleep for about 2 or 3 hours solid. Then the 90-minute cycles begin. He will sleep for about 90 minutes, then wake up and want a feed. It's easier to express breastmilk and give it to him in a bottle than to move him from his cot (shoved up beside my bed) into bed and feed him and return him... but that is not good enough for him! I think he wants a cuddle as well as a feed. So anyway, he is eating every 90 minutes, 2 hours if I'm lucky, all night long, so that by 6 am when he is really awake, I'm really, really tired and don't always get to catch up when he takes a nap.

For example, today during his 1-3 nap he just wouldn't sleep, though I could tell he was tired. He just wouldn't eat, though I could tell he was hungry. He just got more and more wound up, which is not like him at all. He is normally a sunny, happy, engaging baby who is very alert and well, happy. What is happening?

He had all the signs of teething about a month ago, but no teeth appeared and the signs have gone... except for him putting his fingers in his mouth and his teething ring constantly.

Any advice? Any very, very knackered and at my wits' end.

It's the 4 month regression. A growth spurt and developmental spurt all rolled into one.

The best thing you can do is find ways to make your life easier. I co-slept, fed lying down, slept whenever she slept and took it easy.

It's so much easier to change your behaviour than it is theirs. Especially when it's developmental and it will pass in time.

It's so hard, but it's normal. I remember well how exhausted I was. Accept any help you can. Bfeed to requirement and trust your body to catch up with his needs.

I am already doing all those things! Because I had an emergency caesarean and then more surgery to stop a massive heamorhage (sp?) I usually feed him lying down. I try to get a nap in the afternoon when he sleeps a good 1.5 or 2 hours.. during his 45-minute morning nap it is easier to just catch up with the laundry or something.

We're trying to get him used to sleeping in his own bed, so I put him there at night and for naps, but as I said I bring him into my bed for feeds. Although, when he starts having nightmares or is suffering from reflux, he does get to just stay in the big bed for cuddles.

My partner offers to sleep with him some nights, so I can catch up on sleep, but I find that creates as many problems as it solves. Even if I express before going to sleep, I wake up with enormous aching breasts. Apparently the baby doesn't wake as much for my partner as me (!) but also he doesn't settle well after feeds with formula or a bottle of breastmilk. I have never been able to make as much breastmilk as he would like to drink, so we do give a bottle occasionally, usually in the morning after I've fed him all night or in the afternoon when I'm running out. Also, it's easy to mix the infant Gaviscon into the formula powder when making up a feed as I forget to make up a Gaviscon portion when breastfeeding.

I have read about the "4 month regression" but honestly, how long does this hell last? We did have a few days when he slept from 8pm to 8 am, back when he was 8 or 9 weeks old, and were told that he was too young for this, that it was a bad sign and he needed to eat during the night. Well, so that wonderfulness lasted for about 2 or 3 days, really. Apart from that, he has always woken up every 90 minutes or so, sometimes hourly, since birth. Feel that I'm going to lose my mind.

Oh I do sympathise. My dd didn't go longer than 2hrs between feeds until 7 months, usually more frequent than that. The 4 months thing lasted a couple of weeks here.

What do you mean by 'running out'? Do you mean your bmilk? Your breasts are never empty. It works on supply and demand largely and the milk is often made as they're suckling. And during a growth spurt, putting them to the breast when they ask encourages your body to make the milk they need. I think they do wake more if you're there, dd certainly did, as they like the closeness and comfort of a feed and cuddle. It's not just the nutrition.

Their sleep patterns change all the time in the first year, so what they're doing at 8 weeks isn't a guarantee of what they'll do 8 days later, let alone 8 weeks. Their sleep is also the first thing to go when they're going through a change or teething or ill or it's a Tuesday.

It's so hard. I had an em cs too and some post-operative problems so remember how much it takes it out of you. Exhaustion, anaemia, sore breasts, my periods came back at 13 weeks despite the feeding and were ridiculously heavy. I felt like I'd been run over. I won't lie to you, it was miserable and I was in a fog but it passed so quickly. It seems so short in retrospect.

Do you get plenty of help? What about the reflux? Does he sleep propped up a bit?

We get zero help. My family lives 8 time zones away, and my parents are dead. My partner's parents are 75 and 73 and live 400 miles south of us, with really busy social lives and tons of activities. I'm glad they are active, healthy people but wish they would visit more often. My partner's father met the baby at Easter when we flew down there, and his mum has been up to help twice, when the baby was about 3 weeks old and again at 9 weeks. We enquired at the local SureStart and were told that yes, we were the sort of family they would help but they have no volunteers currently for us.

We worked out the reflux about 3 weeks ago, when I took him to our GP and described the symptoms. He gets baby Gaviscon in his last bottle of the evening, or made up as a supplement to his breastfeed before bed. Sometimes he gets Gaviscon during the day, if he keeps bringing milk back up (which he does do, even if he is sitting happily in his high chair or pram).

He used to sleep using a very soft pillow from Sweden (can't remember the brand name, but it was very good) but since he is now turning over we have taken that away from his cot. Even if we did prop him up a bit, he wouldn't stay that way, as he is very mobile now, scooching around the cot and anywhere we put him by pulling his feet towards his bum and shifting along. Or rolling over and over. He is very developed for 19 weeks - I've never seen anything like it. He could easily pass for 6 months in size and development. He was a big baby (9 and 1/2 lbs), started holding his head up and looking around confidently at 5 days old (midwives were astonished) and is very strong!

He sounds so much like my dd. She was average at birth, but huge and off the charts by 9 weeks. She was 23lbs at 23 weeks I remember so probably 21 or so lbs at 19 weeks. Definitely in 9-12 month clothing. Sitting up, active, commando crawling. She was also looking round at days old, uber strong, pulling up by 6 months, cruising a few weeks later. They sound SO similar. I remember thinking she just seemed frustrated by her physical limitations and so desperate to be up and on the go all the time. And it's hard to keep up with isn't it? What about friends? Nobody from antenatal classes? Somebody who'll take him for a walk for a couple of hours with a bottle of expressed milk? I understand if you're reluctant though.

It passes I promise. DD is 3 and the baby stage is such a distant memory in many ways.

This is my first MN message - hi everyone!

Snap - my ds (4 months) was just the same till I read this article last week and realised he was overtired - it makes really interesting reading: community.babycenter.com/post/a5417415/how_to_successfully_teach_a_baby_to_sleep_-_3rd_ed.

I think your bedtime is too late and babe is overtired, just like mine was. The first night after making my ds nap lots (and lots) in the day, and bringing his bedtime forward to 7pm he slept for 8 hours straight after being up every 1.5 hours the night before!

Hope this helps!

He napped from 9:45am to 11:30am, then had another epic nap for 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon, then another 30 minutes before dinner. We started his bath at 7 today instead of 8 or 8:30 and by 7:45 he was in bed, in pajamas breastfeeding. I would say he was asleep by 8, but breastfed until 8:20. I waited a couple of minutes, then put him into his own cot. Bing! His eyes flew open. Goodness. I gave him a 5 oz bottle with Gaviscon, and a nice warm bottle or breastfeeding usually puts him to sleep, but not tonight. He's been blowing bubbles and moving around ever since. He's just beginning to sound a bit distressed to be alone, so I'll have to go up and calm him now.... I guess try and breastfeed him to sleep again. It was all going well, following Cavewoman's advice, but this is only Day One I suppose. Wish me luck!

Oh no - how did he get on last night? Hope I didn't make things worse for you!

Mine had short naps yesterday and woke lots last night - feel blek today!

It's been a gradual thing. We have been getting better at getting him into bed earlier. At 7 I take a shower and then fill a shallow bath and take him in to have a splash with his toys while I wash him. It's been quite warm up here lately and he's been rather sweaty. We try not to use soap all the time, since we both have eczema and are very keen that DS does not develop it!

We are usually both washed and in bed by 7:30 now, and he's breastfeeding or asleep by 7:45. Yesterday he woke at 3:30 and wouldn't settle for me, so my partner took him and says he went back to sleep until 8. That hasn't happened before. (Well once or twice when he was about 8 weeks old).

He seems to go into a deeper sleep now, at least for the first 3 or 4 hours. I wonder if it's just developmental? He'll be 23 weeks old on Tuesday.

He tends to nap after being awake for 2 hours, almost to the dot. He went through a period of 4 or 5 cat naps of 20-25 minutes when we first started rolling back the bedtime, but maybe he was just catching up on his sleep deficit? He tends to have about 3 naps now, of about an hour. It's hard to tell in this heat, it makes everyone drowsy!