What the hell has happened to my baby’s sleep?

[Honeyhoney2]

I have a 2 month old DD. Up until now her sleep has been as expected, the first couple of weeks waking often to be fed or cuddled, but then she started settling into a 4 hour chunk followed by a feed and settle, and then 2 hour chunk. After that she was up and ready at 5am to start the day (wouldn’t go back down until her morning nap around an hour later).

Obviously this isn’t ideal, but it is as to be expected and it was working fine. I was just about coping with six hours of broken sleep, enough to basically function anyway.

The last few nights have been madness though. She has woken up every 40 minutes to the second, and she wakes up screaming too. Usually for her night feed she just whimpers a bit and doesn’t settle, but over the past couple of days she has been crying all night. Me and DH are both absolutely exhausted.

The only actual change that has happened was her 2 month vaccinations on Friday, she was tired and fussy after those, but surely 4 nights after that she isn’t still be impacted?

Has this happened to anyone else? I’m struggling to cope with the sleep deprivation. She slept better when she was literally fresh out of the womb, at least then it was every 2 hours just to feed. Right now it’s constant and she’s fussing through the night feeds and fighting going back to sleep, I’m so stressed out and tired :(

Could it be colic/ trapped wind? That can make an appearance at that age and disrupt sleep...

What you're describing went on here from 6-9 months. No Longer than an hour all night every night and was torturous and really made our marriage miserable too as we were exhausted and turned on each other. We just rode it out as best as we could taking it in turns apart from me trying to boob back to sleep. You have my sympathy!

For us it was a combination of teething and leap and weaning etc. It'll pass but it was hell!

Oh my. You’re in for a long ride!

Baby sleep isn’t linear. There are growth spurts, teething, development leaps….. all sorts of things that disrupt sleep in the first year or 2. It’s absolutely normal. Getting through it requires you to lower your expectations, I’m afraid.

The good news is the spells of wakefulness pass. The bad news is so do the good nights.

You may need to do shifts with your DH to get through it. So you sleep 8pm to midnight and then he sleeps midnight till 5am.

(My DH worked away when DD was small so I just had to deal with it by myself. I had the freezer stocked with meals and if I was in PJs all day, so be it. I’d sleep during the day when she napped, and caught up during the 36 hours a week when DH was home.)

My daughter was doing it on her own. I stayed up until 2am and then she was in charge…it really worked!! It meant she got loads of sleep and I could catch up and my daughter really was ok during the day.

DD used to be unsettled for around ten days after jabs, every baby is different. Plus as other said developmental leaps can affect it. We had this from four months when she hit a sleep regression. Hope she settles a bit more soon.

I'd recommend taking a look at the wonder weeks app. It doesn't solve anything really but let's you see the development milestones etc in relation to sleep, and warns you of upcoming leaps which I found helpful/accurate.

It's tough when you are going through it, but you will get used to it. It's a phase which will pass, but as others have said you'll have highs and lows now for a while!

Find ways of coping and make sure you share the load as best as you can for your circumstances. Make the most of daytime naps for rest when you need to rather than housework etc.

My boy took a full 2 weeks to get back to normal from his first jabs.

They go through phases of not sleeping, but every phase does come to an end!