Obsessively anxious about 3mo sleep

[Krimson]

My 3 month old is generally a good sleeper only waking once in night for a bottle. He goes down awake and then will settle to sleep with the help of his dummy. Recently he has been crying in his sleep and will be only be settled with his dummy where before this he was sleeping through.

I've read a lot about the four month regression and now it is all I can think about. I'm full of regret of giving my baby a dummy as I'm now worried he will be reliant on it and I'll need to replace it every sleep cycle and get up every 40 min or two hours. I've convinced myself his sleep is going to go backwards and I'll never sleep again and worried how I'll cope with the lack of sleep. I'm obsessively reading anything I can about four month regression and the use of dummies and feel ill at the thought of nights now. Last night I was physically sick with anxiety during the night.

I suffer from anxiety and a lot of is due to things out with my control which baby sleep is. I am not coping with the uncertainty of what might come and how I will cope with the broken nights sleep. I've literally got it in my head my son will never sleep again and i'll be sleep deprived for ever and i've ruined him by giving him a dummy. Any help would be apprecited.

Really try not to focus on all this monthly regression stuff, it wasn’t a thing at all when I had my babies and lots of people are very sceptical about the whole concept.

Baby sleep changes so often in the first year and really you just have to take it night by night. Seems to me that your baby is a great sleeper for such a young age so best to try and focus on that.

Thank you for your message. I think I'm worried as things seem to be going backwards with him crying and waking more in the night.

I would suggest looking up some CBT exercises to work through your thoughts and reframe them, basically nothing is going to be as catastrophic as you think. Actually my little boy is 4 months and has been waking every 2 hours recently but I am managing to function fine during the day, I get a little tired in the evenings - and trust me I love my sleep. Everyone I know has some type of sleep crutch with their baby at this age: feeding to sleep, dummy, rocking etc. If you didn't have the dummy you'd have something else instead.

I felt a bit like this but then realised if we didn’t use a dummy, there would only be something else we’d have to do to settle our baby. Whether that’s rocking to sleep, patting, feeding, shhhing, it would be something and then popping a dummy back in didn’t seem so bad in comparison!
yes it’s not ideal I know. We hit the 4 month sleep regression hard and never fully recovered (nearly 6 months) but actually I find he either wakes up because something is bothering him which is understandable he’d then want comfort because he’s a baby or their sleep cycles become 2 hours around 4 months so he’d wake up anyway and a lot of the times even though I always give him the dummy to fall asleep he just goes back to sleep by himself and if he doesn’t then it’s because something is bothering him and it’s not because the dummy fell out. Unfortunately I think unless you’re blessed with a great sleeper, this is how babies are and I find comfort knowing there’s not a lot I can do about it so no point worrying and it will get better eventually.

Hi, completely know what you mean about anxiety around sleep. We also use a dummy and went through a period of having to replace it, which was a pain. However, around 7 months they learn how to put it back in themselves, which is what happens now for us and baby sleeps through. As others have said, if it wasn't a dummy it would be something else at this stage. Wishing you all the best.

Thank you all for your messages. I've done work with a counsellor on thought processes and have written exercises to do when I feel like this. I must get them done. I get so anxious reading Instagram and posts on here about how desperate and what sleep deprivation does to people. I find it hard to struggle not knowing how a night will go and feeling that I'll be sleep deprived for years on end.

What I've found it's that most things aren't as bad as what you read about on here. For example when I was pregnant I needed a glucose tolerance test. On here all I read was "oh it was awful, I puked and fainted and the drink tasted disgusting" it was literally no bother whatsoever. Same with induction/drip, not as bad a I had prepared myself for. I wish I wasn't constantly reading about stuff!

Hi Krimson. I could’ve written this post myself, a few weeks back! My baby is 16 weeks and recently I found myself worrying about this dreaded 4 month sleep regression. Like you, I kept Googling things. I searched whether it was real, how to avoid it, tips for coping, all sorts… I think I was looking for a magical answer. Like you, I seem to get very anxious about the thought of having bad sleep - even though my baby is an excellent sleeper (subjective, I know, but I think it’s excellent!). I felt better when I read that these regressions seem to be new fads that older parents never experienced - then I’d convince myself those parents had simply forgotten the awfulness! But either way, every single baby is so unique - your baby might avoid any type of sleep regression but have endless colds and sniffles, which also affect sleep!

So having been there myself, my tips are:

• Stop Googling - seriously, stop searching on this topic! I just had to stop looking it up. If you worry about something before it’s even happened, you have to go through it twice. If it doesn’t happen, you’ll have worried for no reason.
• Similarly, stop looking at it on Instagram. Don’t go on the Explore page and if a Reel comes up about sleep, just swipe past it - 99% of them are made by women who aren’t qualified but think having a baby is enough of a certificate to make stupid Instagram content they know nothing about. You’ve just found the wannabe Mrs Hinchs of the baby world.
• Just accept that sleep might go haywire - but that might happen at any point, due to anything! Illness, teething, anything random - babies don’t sleep perfectly how we want them to, and there’s always a reason it might go wrong.
• If you do have a few bad nights, know that you can get through with naps, coffee or an early bedtime for yourself.
• Hold on to the good things. My baby can be put down in the cot awake, and drift off to sleep herself as long as I’m in her eyeline - so I reflect on how good that is, even if she is up during the night a couple of times!

At the moment she wakes up occasionally and needs her dummy popping back in, but it’s so quick I go back to sleep myself in a matter of minutes - it really doesn’t bother me much. In the morning I don’t remember how many times it was, as I just have to get on with things when she wakes for the day.

I also find the dummy invaluable so I’d rather have it than not, at this stage. As other people say, if not a dummy then you’d have another sleep crutch. The dummy is by far the least effort on your part.

If it helps, the first 6 weeks were so bad I ended up on anti depressants (for my anxiety) and they have hugely helped - along with gaining new confidence, learning my baby’s cues, etc etc - all the stuff that was going to come naturally. So tablets are always a backup plan.

I hope you can rest a little better and forget all this stuff - tbh it all feels designed to panic new parents like ourselves into buying bullshit sleep training courses and online packages - avoid like the plague, I reckon!

Hugs 🤗

Thank you all for your comments. Unfortunately my anxiety has completely spiralled out of control. I cannot relax in an evening and as I think we are in this four month regression as his sleep has changed I am obsessed with reading anything I can get my hands on. When I read it goes on for months it makes me panic.

I'm completely fixated on the dummy as we are getting up more to put it in which is exhausting. Health visitor said to give it up cold turkey but tried that tonight and he was hysterical within 5 minutes of putting him down so I gave in. No advice on how to soothe him or deal with the crying of him not having it. I feel complete panic at not getting sleep and that this could go on for months.

I know it’s easy for others to say but please try not to worry too much about the 4 month sleep regression.

I was exactly like you, obsessively googling and watching Instagram content to try to prepare for it and when it did hit it lasted around 10 days. My little boy actually wasn’t fussed about a dummy beforehand but we did go back to using one during the regression as it was the easiest way to settle him and he’s now (at 6 months) gone back to not using one again.

It was absolutely nowhere near as bad as I was expecting or would have been lead to believe by most of the information and stories you find on the internet! Try to remind yourself that the people who post are the people who are struggling most - those who are managing well tend to stay quiet.

Hope this has reassured you a bit and that you are able to get your anxiety under control soon x