4 month sleep regression hell: Support thread

[blackcurrants]

DS is 18 weeks and has never been a good sleeper (waking every 2-3 hours in the night) - but he used to go back to sleep immediately after I offered him a boob. I then either fell asleep next to him (got bed set up for safe co-sleeping) or waited five minutes and eased him into the co-sleeper next to the bed.

This has all changed: over the last two weeks he wakes every hour, feeds for AGES, sometimes won't go back to sleep, has also been teething since last week (poor lad) and generally totally exhausting.

I'm at the end of my rope. For the first time since he was born I've felt "I can't do this" - not sure what 'this' is exactly - breastfeeding, raising a child, both? I work three days a week but have cut back any other commitments at the moment so I can nap at every possible chance -on the days when I'm home I lie down every time DS does - but I'm still bloody knackered, and a wreck.

I've been searching my soul: did I respond too quickly to his cries when he was a newborn? Have I 'trained him' to wake up this often? Is it time he was in his own room? Is it time I was in my own room, in another (warmer) country, after a name change? I'm definitely a bad mother for all this breastfeeding co-sleeping nonsense, after all, because friends who 'let their baby cry a bit' MONTHS ago have had 6-7 hours each ever since....
(yes, a friend let her baby CIO at 3 months old. Yes, she's still my friend. Yes, it upsets me that she did that, but no, her daughter's not suffering - indeed, they're all insufferably perky and happy and well-rested looking)....

Anyway, I don't want to stop being a breastfeedy, co-sleepy, respond-to-crying baby-y weirdo - and DH is right there with me - but I DO need to remind myself, now and then, that this is the 4 month sleep regression and not 'my chickens coming home to roost' or 'the rod for my own back'... it's a developmental stage, not my failures as a new mum.

I feel lots better for writing all that, actually! [cgrin]

I know there are other people going through the same lack-of-sleep torment as me - come and have a vent. You'll feel better. We can commiserate and share notes!

Everyone seems to say weaning doesn't help unfortunately..................DS is 21 weeks, am holding off to about 24, well that's the idea but if someone told me a couple of spoonfuls of porridge before bed settles them down I might just start.

Weaning helped both my dc1 and 2 but not straight away, it took a while and then once they were on to proper food 3 x a day, no more night feeds. But dc3 is different....

petsville sorry - maybe you'll be luckier than me. DS is also a huge grinning baby! At least someone's happy with it all. He is, in fact, so smiley I sometimes think there must be something wrong with him - because I feel like weeping

he's crawling, pulling himself up, doing all types of bionic stuff that dd never did until a good 3 months later. And he loooooves boob. He is pretty uninterested in solids, unfortunately. Again not like dd at all

on the positive side, he took a bottle for the first time ever last week. Early years breastflow. It was utterly thrilling. I had to leave him to go for my back to work meeting and he took it. Has had a few bottle feeds since and I have gone out for an afternoon with dd. Just getting to playgroup without him attached was an unbelievable thing

I totally agree that it feels horribly claustrophobic anyway, the whole ebf/bottle refusal. And when combined with lack of sleep it is a killer. But now he's eating some solids I'm less fussed about occasional formula

anyway, we had a 3 hour stretch 12 - 3 last night, which felt amazingly luxurious! I just hope this all passes when first teeth arrive, or I will kill myself or backseat breastfeeding dh. I am more knackered than at any other point in my life. We've also spent past 2 months with builders coming and going to have new kitchen fitted - was supposed to take 2 weeks. And I managed to crash car last week (on the way to my dad's funeral) on the snow, so that is now out of action for 2 weeks. And SIL just moved in to our already overcrowded house for 3 months - it doesn't rain but it pours sometimes. Everything would feel a lot easier on 8 straight hours of sleep, that much I'm certain of.

Phew - feel better for venting, though

well dd now has a chest infection and can't lie down/eat properly so I am gonna be sat up all night with her asleep on my chest. Ended up co-sleeping last night as she was so hot was scared she might have a fit. I bet that when the antibiotics kck in and she is better she will be used to co-sleeping so I will never get any time to myself.

She also eats every 1-2 hours and won't entertain a bottle or a dummy am actually slowly knackering my back as she won't let me put her down.

Feel so sorry for the poor little thing as she has no idea what is going on and gets all upset when she coughs.

Hope she's a bit better this morning emmylou.
I had 4.5 hours from 1.30am til 6am, then a bit before that and a bit after that, so feeling a bit more with it today (and no hissy fits about WHO weaning guidelines at 5am like I had the night before).
Dc3 is also excessively over the top smiley, do the smiley ones not sleep well?

FFS am totally fucking fed up. Dd woke up at 845, 945, 1045 1145 then sleep till 3 and got up at 7. Not toobad, but I'm still exhausted from the cumulative effects of 2weeks without proper sleep and illness. This morning she is refusing to nap, refusing to eat even tho have given various teething things and calpol. Am so tired my temper is on really short fuse and am getting angry with her. She's currently crying in her Moses basket, nothing I do settles her and am getting so angry she's better off away from me. Feel like such a bad mother, just can't cope with her playing up during the day as well as the awful nights :-(

Oh that's awful Newmumlondon - do you have someone you can go and see today? Yesterday DS was bloody poisonous and I was only saved by having lunch with some other new mum mates in a restaurant, where they commiserated with me and held DS for a while (cos their babies were asleep in pushchairs... grrr) and basically made me feel like I was in good company. Saved my sanity.

DS then came home, did the world's most petrifyingly enormous nappy, and then ate and slept like a little cherub. It sounds like your DD's sleep is improving a bit - is she teething/got a cold? Seems like every child in my town has a cold, and all the mums look haggard!
Perhaps there's light at the end of the tunnel for you. Fingers crossed, anyway.

And oh tsc I winced when I read your first post and haven't been back on for a while. NICE ONE! :)

My DS went down at 7pm, woke at 11.30 and 3.30, then again at 4.30 and 5.30 (less good but I think I worked out at 5.30 that I'd left the bedroom door open and he was cold, poor love). No idea how to keep him warm enough without overheating, this flat is bloody freezing...

Hi blackcurrants, am going for coffee this afternoon :-)

Finally got her down for her nap, going to try and catch half an hour on the sofa.

She's had norovirus then a cold (so have I) and she's still got a touch of it. She is teething too!

Sounds like the older babies are starting to sleep better, gives me hope! Not sure if dd is improving or not, there is no pattern. There will be bursts of waking every hour and a couple of longer stretches but no predicting when they will come.

Emmylou hope ur dd's chest gets better quickly. My dd had a terrible cough last week which kept her up and she would only sleep on me. I scooched her down into the crook of my arm once she fell asleep so at least I could lie down.

blackcurrants I keep dc3 warm by putting her in 2 vests(one long sleeve one short sleeve) a babygro a cardi and a sleeping bag(2.5tog). If she feels like an ice block when I feed her in the night (cold neck not just cold hands) I put a cellular blanket on her. I had to do the same with dc2, i hated doing it as the FSID leaflet says not to let them overheat, but it's really cold at the moment.Dc3 was born in June and it was 27c in the room!

DS is getting better in that he seems to have settled on a 4am feed after tanking up all evening, then 2 hourly thereafter. I don't try to put him to bed before I go, not worth the stress, so we go up at 10ish after a feed, I get him ready for bed, then he chills in his cot, has a feed and is down by 11.30. I'm back into being up in the night now so it's not so bad, although bad things were said last night when I managed to break a glass in the bathroom sink getting a drink after the 4am feed.

During the day though, he's become a total mummy's boy. Wants to be held by me and only me all the time. We used to have a routine where he went to DH as soon as he came home so I could cook tea and they could have boys time, but he has started screaming blue murder, floods of tears, whenever I hand him over. I'm having to do everything with him in a sling to keep him calm. He's happy as a clam when he's in my arms, but it's a bit wearing especially as he is a wakey, smiley baby who wants talking to and playing with all the time, my legs are killing from bouncing a 17lb baby in a sling all day.

Late to the thread but am sure you won't care

DS - 17w - was a dream until about 4w ago

Now up every 1-1.5 hrs in the night, the boob doesn't always get him straight back to sleep anymore either, he's in our bed most of the time (it's a standard double, am fed up with shoulder ache now from lying on my side)

I am ok until about this point in the afternoon then WHAM! It hits me. Just as I have to head out to do the school-run

Can feel 'competitive tiredness' coming on betwen me and DP, too...

notnowbernard laughing at the 'competitive tiredness'. Me and my DH have this too! It's a race to see who deserves a nap in the weekend afternooons.

Know what you are saying about the tiredness hitting you just as going out for the school run too.

I think we are starting with the comptitive tierdness too. DH works long hours and because she is still refusing to sleep anywhere apart from on me he gets woken up all night too, plus we both are now ill with whatever DD has.

I don't know how you with more than one child cope! As she wakes all the time during the night - i keep trying to put her in her cot as she gets really hot in our bed and I can't sleep properly with her there she has slept for 4 hours this afternoon however it was while we were out xmas shopping so now she is wide awake and wanting to play I just want to curl up in bed. Can't even take anything apart from paracetamol - damn breastfeeding.

Antibiotics have also given her diarrhoea so not only am I knackered, but I spend all my time covered in poo, sick, snot and medicines she has spat out - what idiot decided to make baby antibiotics bright yellow! Sorry just needed to moan!

tsc I hope it lasts if it does you are giving me hope!

Mine too! He is always great in the day so then makes up for it at night! He spaces his feeds 2-3 hours in the day with 2 nice long naps of up to 2 hours. Won't take more in the day so can't top him up with BF tbh.

DD had a nightmare last night, bed at 1930, woke a few times, up for feed at 2230 then wide awake again at midnight.

SO I brought her in with us and we had a lovely snuggly night. I did half wake up at about 0300 as she headbutted my norks and snuffled at them, which I think was code for feed me! Fed lying down, back to sleep.

But I am really struggling to get the daytime nap thing going, which doesn't help. She either ends up with too big a gap before bed so she is getting exhausted, or waking up 45 mins before bed. Do you guys have any 'routine' during the day? I am really trying to get her to have some naps, but not sure how to go about it. Most of the time she will only sleep on me/DH, so if I am desperate I need to settle myself on the sofa with Sky+ and get comfy! Or she will sleep on the bed upstairs, if I'm lying next to her. I want one of those magic babies that sleep for 2 hrs in their cot while their mother wafts around the house!

And Emmy, I am with you on the sick and snot front. DH has been poorly and she has been ill too, for a while she threw up 2 out of every 3 feeds, always down me. I have discovered it doesn't all come out in the wash.

Hello again

DS hasn't got a routine in the day other than he always falls asleep about 2hr after waking 'first thing' in the morn (about 7ish usually). This co-incides with the school run which is handy, means he stays asleep in the buggy for a couple of hours. After that it's anyone's guess what he does

Sorry for those of you with ill DC... makes the sleep deprivation 100x worse

Mine will sleep in the buggy, either in the house if he dozes off on me and I move him, or if we are out and about. Won't sleep in the cot in the day - I am not that bothered as long as he sleeps!

DS isn't that keen on the cot in the day either. But will fall asleep easily in his bouncy chair or on a mat on the floor

His sleep cues are SO easy to read in the day, and there is no faffing about getting him to sleep

WHY oh WHY can't he sleep nicely again at night?!?

The worse thing is, experience is tapping me on the shoulder telling me that this is it for the next few months...

DD2 didn't sleep through any decent time until she was about a year

Ditto, she will sometimes sleep in the sling or the pram. I'm not really one for a strict routine as such, I just don't like her getting overtired. I don't care what time she sleeps, or where, as long as she does when she needs to! When she was a bit younger she could go all day on a couple of 15 min naps.

I find DS will sleep in the daytime if we go out - today we went out for lunch and to buy food for the weekend and he slept in the pushchair all the way through lunch (hurrah!). If we're at home, we're lucky if we get 20 minutes napping at a time and he only really likes to sleep on me or DH - if we put him in his cot we get heartbroken wails within minutes. So we try to get out every day, but the weather is so filthy it's been hard for the last couple of weeks.

Last night was a bit better than previous nights have been - "only" three wakings between midnight and 6 a.m., and he didn't decide to get up for the day till 7.30 this morning, so I feel a bit more human. Fingers crossed tonight is OK as I have to go to work tomorrow...