Nightmare nights with 4 month old

[CamperFan]

I will post this in "Sleep" too; I don't know if it related to breastfeeding, but I am desperate!

DS2 is 18 weeks old today and we are having a terrible time at night. He is ebf, and slept 'well' until 12 weeks. We were having one long feed in the night at this point between 7 and 7am. Then at 12 weeks this went haywire and nights have been unpredictable with more frequent feedings since then, with the odd 9 hr stretch keeping me sane. However, the last week has been even worse. He has been waking every 2 hours, literally screaming. Generally the only way to settle him is to feed, sometimes I can settle him with rocking, etc. He sleeps in my room in a cot, but on nights like this I am so tired I just keep him in my bed.

I know babies can have the 4 month sleep regression, but this has been going on for 6 weeks, and he seems extremely angry when he wakes up. I am going to see the cranial osteopath tomorrow. He rarely takes a dummy and I don't think he is teething, but who knows. In the day he generally feeds every 2-3 hours and has been distracted lately I sometimes have to take him to a darkened room to feed. In the day he is generally a happy little chap, naps twice although no fixed routine (I find a routine hard with bfing and another DS).

I just wondered if anyone had any advice at all. (I don't remember anything like this with DS1, by this time he was sleeping through til about 5am, although he was mix fed from 3 months.) Is anyone experiencing the same thing?

Hi CamperFan

I feel your pain! DH and I went through the same with our DD. I say DH but let's face it, when you're bf'ing it's pretty much all you!! My story is pretty much the same as yours word-for-word, although by 4 months DD was sleeping in cot in her own room but that is by the by.

I was completely stumped for a couple of months. Nothing would put DD back to sleep except feeding until she fell asleep on the breast, then walking around with her on shoulder til in deep sleep, then VERY gently laying her back down in cot. Absolutely exhausting as this was every bedtime and 2-3 times every night.

You don't say whether you put your DS down in his cot awake and let him fall asleep on his own but this turned out to be our main problem. It sounds like your DS might have a similar problem to my DD as he is now only able to settle with a feed. At 18weeks it is unlikely that he is hungry every 2 hours through the night, esp if he is taking a good feed before going down. It sounds like he is unable to fall asleep on his own, as he has associated falling asleep with being rocked or fed, and when he stirs through the night (as all babies do several times a night) he wakes up fully and then needs you to be able to get back to sleep. My DD was always fed/rocked to sleep and then put in her cot. This resulted in her being unable to fall asleep on her own - when she was put down in the evenings or when she stirred overnight. Through the day the only way to get her to sleep was by driving around in the car. It got so bad that i was having to put her in the car for EVERY nap EVERY day!

Anyway, we finally cracked the problem with controlled crying. I know it is controversial and is not advised before 6 months but it worked like a dream for us. I was dreading it and had worked myself up into a state about it while waiting for DD to reach the 6-month mark, but I had become so exhausted by this point that I was determined to try anything to crack the problem. Anyway, the first night was very hard, but despite my fears of hours of hard crying, DD cried for 45 mins then fell asleep at 7.45pm. She didn't wake again til 6.45 the next morning - incredible! The next morning I put her in her cot for her nap for the first time in a couple of months. She cried for 10 mins - didn't even have to check on her as there wasn't time! Since then we have had no problems at all. Not once. DD is now almost 8 months old and I have just stopped bf'ing 2 days ago.

I think it's almost certainly overtiredness from too few naps - babies this age need 3 naps. Most babies this age can't manage to stay happily awake for more than 1.5 - 2 hours, maximum 3 hours without needing another nap. Being awake for too long at once is what causes overtiredness.

A baby who wakes around 7ish might need naps around 8.30/9ish, 12ish and 3ish (although that's a very rough guide as it varies from baby to baby).

Babies who only nap for 40 mins at a time will probably need 4 naps rather than 3 (which was the the case for my DS).

Overtiredness results in more frequent night waking, needing more soothing to sleep (certainly for my DS would often only feed back to sleep when overtired - wouldn't be rocked). Basically being awake for too long leads to high levels of stress hormones and the body produces adrenaline to counteract that - which makes it even harder for them to sleep well.

Most babies drop to 2 naps around 6-9 months.

HTH