At my wits end with 5mo sleep. Please help!

[MintGreenLife]

My LB is 5.5mo. Until he was about 2.5mo myself and my partner had to sleep in shifts taking it in turns to hold him over night while he slept. We got him sleeping in his crib and everything felt so much better. He would sleep around 9hrs a night, waking 2-3 times to feed. Now for four nights in a row he’s started waking every hour and is impossible to put back down. We’re having a 2-3hr screaming battle in the evenings just trying to get him to sleep, and after all that he only sleeps an hour. I’m currently sat awake letting him sleep on me as hubby sleeps after we spent another hour trying to get him to go back down again.

What on earth is going on?! How do I manage this?? I’m sleeping 2-3hrs a night at best and I feel horrendous. Last few nights I’ve coslept with him from 4am ish, but I hate it, plus every time I roll him onto his back (after breastfeeding him laying down on his side) he cries so I have to roll him back onto his side, and the only way ge will stay asleep is hugged into me. I’m terrified he will suffocate if I pull him in too tight in my sleep, or if he rolls onto his front. Please help someone, what’s the solution here and how can I get some sleep?!

Oh, mate. That sounds shit.
If you can, get through tonight, call the midwife/health visitor in the morning and get advice.
From what I remember, swaddling can help as they feel more snuggled and less stressed, as long as they're not overheating.
When my DS started to be more wakeful in the night, my then health visitor said to put a tiny amount of baby rice with some breast milk (so it was like watery soup, not rice pudding) and let him have enough to satisfy him. He slept through the night so well I thought the worst when I woke and it was daylight. Disclaimer - this was pertinent to my son at the time and was under guidance from the health visitor. I wouldn't advocate following advice on forums like this without expert input from someone who knows you and your baby. Worth an ask, though.
I did Ferber in the end with mine as he did struggle with sleep but actually had underlying health problems nobody knew about. It took one night of controlled crying and he got it in the end. Thankfully!

Even if you have to co-sleep for tonight, get some kip. Make that call in the morning. Good luck x

@BlissfullyIgnorant thanks so much for your reply. I have worried something else could be at play, as we had concerns about his health early on,, but endless tests showed all normal in the end. I probably shouldn’t be letting him sleep on me as don’t want to go backwards with that, but I have no idea how else to manage this. I’ll try contacting the HV and see what they say x

No advice for you but just bumping as it sounds awful

@MintGreenLife How did your night go?

@Daffodil21 💕

@BlissfullyIgnorant hubby took him at 3am and I managed to get about an hour’s sleep, I then coslept with him until 7.30am, but he was feeding every hour and didn’t want to sleep on his back, so was very poor quality/broken sleep. I feel completely broken today to be honest. My family have left today after spending Christmas here, so I’m really hoping it was the Christmas fuss and all the different people around that’s disturbing his nights - he does seem to be quite a sensitive soul and I’d easily overwhelmed 😢 will text the HV to see if there’s anything they advise, although will be surprised if they get back to me any time soon! X

Oh bless you both!
At 5.5mo, he's waking up a lot. Definitely look up current guidance on weaning as he may be hungry. I won't suggest any more than I already have as things may well have changed since my DS had similar - he's 22yo now! Weaning just under 4mo and controlled crying around 7mo helped him a lot.
Really wishing you masses of luck with this. You'll get there x

@BlissfullyIgnorant thanks so much. General advice now is to start weaning around 6 months, and my DS was three weeks early, so generally seems ready for things slightly later. He is exclusively breastfed, so I may try a bottle a day first and see if that helps. Thanks for your advice xx

Blerrghhh yes.
My baby absolutely had 4, 6, 8, and 10m sleep regressions. Has he by any chance started rolling or anything recently?

Co sleep I was the same...was totally against it. But eventually you get so sleep deprived it's just whatever works to get you sleep!!! I'd say it isn't abnormal to change dramatically in the nights, just sucks when you're used to something working!

We sleep trained our littley at 8m and again at 10m. It did work, did Ferber and within three nights she was sleeping through! But he's still pretty little at 5.5m and the recommendation is6months plus. Hard to know when waking for hunger or comfort.

My advice would be do whatever works for you to get sleep. Def don't worry about cuddling or feeding back to sleep or anything at this stage. I spent so much time terrified of bad habits and such but they're so changeable!!!

It may be a case of back to shift sleeping and ride the wave. I TOTALLY understand sleep deprivation though mumma.

I hope this doesn't last long!!! Xx

So sorry OP, sleep deprivation is so rough. My LO went through something similar around 5 months old. I put it down to the four month sleep regression. I found co sleeping was the only way to get any sleep. By 5months baby is more robust so I didn't worry so much about crushing them. We did gentle sleep training at 6months old which got her back in her cot but didn't really help with the hourly wake ups. Can you tag team with partner to maximise sleep for you both then nap at same time as LO during the day?

It's crap though. My LO still wakes 2-3hourly at 11months old :(

[quote MintGreenLife]@BlissfullyIgnorant thanks so much. General advice now is to start weaning around 6 months, and my DS was three weeks early, so generally seems ready for things slightly later. He is exclusively breastfed, so I may try a bottle a day first and see if that helps. Thanks for your advice xx[/quote]
You're welcome. I'm glad you managed to work something out.

When DS was a baby, the guidance was to wean no earlier than 4 months but he was a little younger than that at the time. HV said it would be ok as he was clearly hungry even though he had copious breast milk on demand and occasional formula.

Good luck. I'm sure it'll work out absolutely fine very soon for you x

@TreaclePlum it’s so soul destroying when we thought we had seen the back of having to sleep in shifts and hold him while he slept. He’s not rolled yet, but over the last few days he’s been rolling onto his side a lot and swinging his legs around, so seems like he’s trying. He’s generally a baby that needs a lot of support to get to sleep (rocking or feeding) so I’m not too worried about that as otherwise he wouldn’t sleep! It’s when I’m cosleeping the fact that he will only sleep on his side and pressed up against me that makes me worry, as I’m not sure it’s safe, but when it’s 5am and I’ve been up all night I don’t know what else I can do 😭 glad to hear your LO started sleeping through, makes me feel like there’s light at the end of the tunnel! Xx

@Skyla01 we thought he went through the 4 month sleep regression about a month ago, but perhaps this is it! As he was early, that could make sense. I’m not so worried about crushing him, I’m a light sleeper so I’m confident that wouldn’t happen. It’s more if I hugged him in too close, or if he turned his face downwards if he could breathe. I’m sure he would let me know if he couldn’t, but I’m still nervous about it. Tbh I thought after all the initial issues we had he was a pretty good sleeper, as usually goes 4-6 hours initially without waking for a feed. I really hope we can get back to that. As he is EBF it falls solely on me to get him back to sleep at the mo 😢 he contact naps in the day, so no chance of catching up on sleep then. I guess we will just have to get through we best as we can and hope this doesn’t go on too much longer 🤞🏼 Xx

[quote MintGreenLife]@BlissfullyIgnorant thanks so much. General advice now is to start weaning around 6 months, and my DS was three weeks early, so generally seems ready for things slightly later. He is exclusively breastfed, so I may try a bottle a day first and see if that helps. Thanks for your advice xx[/quote]
Sounds like the 4 month sleep regression then.

@WouldIBeATwat I hope not, as read this can go on for weeks 😭 already struggling after 4 nights!

Sleep before 4m bears little resemblance to sleep after 4m with a lot of babies.

My first slept 11-6 straight from 6w and it was great. I'd conquered sleep, hurrah... Then the regression hit and the 7 hour stretches turned into 1-2 hour ones, with battles overnight that lasted for hours. It took tweets to get back to where we were at 6w, though things weren't consistently dire for that long.

Your baby sounds totally normal to me, and their also sounds like normal baby sleep. Sorry.

@Moonbabysmum if this is ‘completely normal’ then I am massive failing as a mother, as I feel broken after just four nights of this. And now we’re on night five.

*massively failing

I’d hazard a guess it’s the “regression” (actually a progression as it’s a shift from tiny baby sleep to a more mature sleep) my second baby is just under 5 months and his naps are hard to get him to settle. He’s far easier than my first baby however!!
I have breastfed and coslept with both. Baby loves it and we all get sleep. He sleeps on his back and so do I. With first I tried so hard to get him to sleep in his cot but it was miserable for us all. Baby cries are communication and they want to be close to you as it’s ingrained in them to stay close to survive and not be alone and vulnerable.
Check up on swaddling a baby at 5.5 months as I think it’s not recommended if they can roll! And putting baby rice in milk is old advice (sorry!!) they don’t advise that now. You can start offering solids if your baby is ready though - I’ve already started with mine as he is the weight and height of a 6 month old, holds his head up sits up and has excellent hand-eye co ordination AND he eyeballs everyone’s food. Makes me feel guilty for eating 🤣 so I offer him some soft steamed broccoli or carrot etc to gum on. He is a really good sleeper at night but if he wakes it’s easy to latch him on cosleeping.

I am with you OP! My LB is 7 months and I haven't had more than 3-4 hours sleep in a night since he was born (that's not even an exaggeration). Completely shattered all the time. He is EBF so it's always on me to do the nights and it has been soul destroying.

We did Ferber a couple of weeks ago and things did improve although he doesn't like being put down initially so still cries before going off. Naps are still a battle so think he cries due to being over tired. He does do longer night stretches as a result but I honestly think I'm going to have to learn how to sleep again as I am always on edge thinking he's going to wake - my Apple Watch tells me I had 0 mins of deep sleep last night.

That wasn't a particularly helpful response but you are not alone!

I’ve already started with mine as he is the weight and height of a 6 month old, holds his head up sits up and has excellent hand-eye co ordination AND he eyeballs everyone’s food

None of these are reasons to start weaning, BTW. Food (especially veg) has far fewer calories by volume than milk, so you’re actually filling his tummy with something that will stop him drinking as much milk as he actually needs.

@WouldIBeATwat this isn’t my first baby love. Trust me he gets plenty of milk and I’m not spooning food in his mouth just giving him safe foods he can hold and gum on. Most of it ends up on his clothes!! He’s only a month off being 6 months and 6 months is not a rule, all babies are different. In my opinion when your baby is physically reaching out to grab your food you might as well allow them to explore some veg.did the same with my toddler and both my children are between 91st-98th centile for length/height

@MintGreenLife

Your aren't failing - its normal to feel broken with it. It's unlikely to continue as bad as it is now on a very long term basis, but it might not be a return to how it was before either.

There is a sleep regression at 6m as well as 4m, but growth spurts, developmental changes, teething and illness all interfere with sleep as well.

You are used to sleeping relatively well, so the adjustment to rubbish sleep takes a while before your body starts to cope better. Now that my youngest mostly sleeps through, I find wake ups destroy me the next day, yet I was exhausted but functional enough to work on 10+ wake ups a night, when that became my norm.

You've got this. They do eventually sleep.

As this has been going on for five nights now I’m thinking mostly likely sleep regression or developmental. Does anyone have any tips on how to get through it?! Am worried it’s going to go on for some time 😖 think maybe I’ll cosleep for a bit as hubby can’t help much anyway with him being EBF. The only thing that seems to settle him back down is feeding (occasionally, shushing and cuddling him in tight when cosleeping works), so am feeding around 6 times a night at the moment and finding it so painfully exhausting 😭

OP come and join us over on the regression thread in sleep. We dont have solutions as such but it's a supportive space with other going through the same and a good place to vent xx

If you can co-sleep and feed lying down that's your best bet for more sleep, been doing that with my nearly 5mo DD for a month now after a few nights of hourly wake-ups.

She's still "waking" every couple of hours but I just shove a boob in her face, can now feed from either side without having to move her too much, and she falls back to sleep and I doze until she's finished when I adjust her if she's on her side and go back to sleep. I still have some nights where, like your DS she wants to be cuddled all night I sleep in the C position and put my other arm over her as I think that's probably safer than having her facing me.