From sleeping through the night to waking every 2 hours

[Melrose86]

Posting this through tears of frustration! My nearly 5 month old was sleeping brilliantly from about 10 weeks. He would sleep from around 9 til 6 with only occasional waking which the dummy or white noise would put him back to sleep. But now he can't even make it til midnight without at least 2 wake ups and nothing will settle him apart from feeding. He is waking at least every 2 hours, sometimes more and it's really hitting me hard since he previously slept so well. This has been going on for about 3 weeks. Ive heard of the 4 month sleep regression and this is some major regressing! I'm wondering if anyone else's baby did this and went back to sleeping through or what might help? The dummy and white noise don't work anymore. He is mostly breastfed but does occasionally have bottles of formula. We have tried formula before bed but it made no difference.

@Melrose86 it really is! And I can't believe how different he is from my 3yo. He won't take a dummy whatsoever, I have tried every single brand so I've gave up trying now. I am scared this may be how he sleeps just 😞

Hi everyone,

I've been dealing with this since my son turned 3 months and 1 week. It's been 5 weeks now. Hes 4 months plus 1 week and hes getting even worse. Any updates and /or advice?

Thanks in advance.

Hi @Ruby1667 for me the 2 hourly wakes stopped after about 9 weeks I think it was. He’s now 10 months and sleeps from 7:45-5ish gets a feed then usually goes back to sleep until 7am. Hang in there, it’s absolute torture but it does improve at some stage!

Thanks so much for replying @Fawn68 .
Did you do anything different or that in hindsight, you wish you had done sooner? Or did you simply have to do the time and continue nursing at each waking?
P.s. my situation is so similar- my girl (bottle fed formula plus BM) never had a regression but she also loved her paci and was a great tummy sleeper. He (EBF) refuses both.

@Ruby1667 to be honest I didn’t do much, everything I read kept saying don’t lift and don’t feed each time and don’t feed to sleep. But this never worked so I did lift and I did feed to sleep and it got us through that difficult time!

Thank-you so much! Yeah, he can sleep without feeding for some naps but by the end of the day and overnight, he's not having it. I really just need to see the light at the end of the tunnel to get through this! I'm so glad things turned a corner for you and your boy. :)

feeding to sleep doesn’t help I had to cut that out , just wake them if they doze off while feeding then they learn to get themselves to sleep, it’s not easy though.
sleep just changes all the time mine was an amazing sleeper from 11 months old once they were attached to a comforter instead of my boob. It will get better, it’s could be teeth too there just a nightmare for the first year I used calpol on and off & the teething granules. X

Hi @Ruby1667 im afraid nothing I tried worked for long but good news is he has started to sleep through most nights now finally at 10 months. I always persevered with putting him back in his cot instead of cosleeping as I did find he woke more when we coslept. The first night he slept through in months was when I had my first night away from him so maybe that helped! Hope things get better soon x

Thank you for replying. When did he start doing better stretches of sleep at night? (Like 3-4 hours at a time)

It's been effecting my mental health to say the least.

He went through phases of sleeping better then back to being up every couple of hours but I would say from about 8 months he was only up once or twice through the night then 10 months started sleeping through. I did find a difference when he started being more consistent having 2 naps a day rather than 3 x

This is good to know! We've been dealing with this for almost 6 weeks now (he's 4.5 months now). I think we will be starting solids soon and see if that helps because if we can't get to the bottom of this, I may have to attempt sleep training or stopping BF (although I fear that may cause a whole other set of problems). I've had really bad moments where I wish I wasn't around or my milk would dry up but I really want to see the light at the end of the tunnel because my wish is to continue BF. Just want to know how everyone coped, what measures they took to improve the situation, and how long it took before things started to improve.

I'm really happy for you guys because you've come out the other side of it. You're one strong mama!

Aww bless you, I'm so sorry you are going through this. I coped by having my husband take over in the early morning so I could sleep in where possible and I did find that feeding him would put him back to sleep so at least he wasn't awake for long though it was often. Do you have lots of help and support? Is there anyone who could watch the baby overnight so you could have a break?

I have support. I'm a SAHM, I live with my in-laws (MIL is retired, FIL works from home) and my hubby is on paternity leave for 8-9 months. So they're helping me and are able to watch our almost 4 year old. My ability to sleep is not the best and I have a history of anxiety/depression. I am extremely lucky to have the help that I do and I've had to learn that I can't do it all myself. My hubby is around to help me exactly as yours did for you.
It's just when you're in the thick of it, it's hard to manage.