5 months old

[Rollypops]

Hello guys,

There's probably loadz of threads on here about this....

My little boy is my whole world, it took over 3 years for him and 3 full rounds of IVF.

He has just turned 5 months old and is waking every 90mins-2hours in the night, it is killing me. I cannot function at all anymore. On a good day I might have showered, eaten and drank properly (by that I don't mean alcohol, although it is tempting!) Guess what I'm asking is, is this normal? I knew being a parent would be really hard, but I just feel like I'm doing something wrong and cannot carry on like this, I am absolutely exhausted. I guess no more than 4 hours of sleep in one go for 5 months is taking its toll......

He is breastfed and just started having tastes of baby porridge / fruit & veg which he has taken to really well.

Congratulations! And yes, absolutely, totally, utterly 100% normal!
I had exactly the same and it was so so hard, but it did get better and now he's just over 18 months. Still the odd crazy day but generally pretty good with sleep.
The only thing you can do is be kind to yourself, I used to hate that saying but I look back, and I'm sure I'll look back on now and think it wasn't me, I shouldn't have blamed myself for the sleepless nights, I wasn't doing anything wrong he's just being a baby.
Good luck 😊

Yep sounds fairly normal to me based on our 3 kids, 4 hours sleep in one go sounds pretty good, are you getting 2 batches of that long each night?

I think around that time I gave into co-sleeping and it transformed my energy levels. Being able to do the night feeds while snoozing made everything so much easier.

Are you able to nap while baby naps? That wasn't an option for me as mine liked to be held while napping for the first 6 months. Looking back I don't quite know how I survived the early months! It's really hard.

@firstbabyworries thanks for your reply. Glad it seems normal, I just really feel like we're doing something wrong xx

@Garman hello :) I wish we did lol 4 hours is on a good night, we definitely don't get 2 lots of that 😳 mainly every 2 hours xx

@Lilgamesh2 hello, we haven't tried co sleeping, so that might be our go 2 tbh.

No, he likes being held too. He'll have 1-2hours asleep on you or 30 mins in crib, he definitely needs a few hours sleep. I have had so many people tell me this is a bad habit too 🙄 we'll do what we can for sleep atm xx

Yes normal! 5 months often feels shit ime - you've had the baby long enough to feel like you should know what you're doing, while still having absolutely no idea what you're doing I felt that way even with my third! Sleep is normal too - in fact a 4 hour chunk is amazing, my bf babies were feeding every 2-3 hours at that age with no proper chunks to sleep in. It will improve!!

Mine was waking every hour at that age! Co-sleeping was the only way. I booted husband out onto the bedroom floor so baby and I could have the bed 😂

Congratulations!

Same over here, 6 months now and still wakes every 45mins-2hrs and by 3am she is absolutely certain it’s wake up time.

it’s slowly killing me but just kind of hoping it doesn’t last forever!

This was so normal for us too with DC1 and 2. Miraculously our 3rd dc sleeps well and I think babies are just all different as I’m doing nothing differently this time .

babies with undiagnosed allergies can be much worse sleepers which applied to our first and I wish I’d known that projectile vomiting etc wasn’t normal. So if your baby is unhappy in any excessive way like this perhaps do mention it to a HV in case there’s something to rule out but usually it’s just normal and the only solace is that the bad nights won’t last forever

I've got a 4.5 month old and we are def going through the 4 month sleep regression, which can last 4-6 I believe. He was sleeping through the night (just) and then we hit 4 months 😫 I have been zombied with the night wakings. Last few nights for the sake of my sanity he's been in his own room and 'proper cot' and I've kept the monitor with me,

I've had to get up to resettle him at 12, 2 and 4 but it's take minutes rather than the hours of him/ us keeping each other awake all night in the same room.

Does any of this fit?

www.healthline.com/health/parenting/4-month-sleep-regression#signs

It's normal. Ignore people talking about bad habits, unless you're prepared to go the whole hog with taking on a really strict routine etc (and who has the energy to do that when sleep deprived?) it doesn't matter at all. Just go with the flow, it will get better in time. I am definitely a fan of co-sleeping, just feels like the right and natural thing to do. We go back to the cot when we get better/more stable stretches of sleep but any sign of sleep disturbance and I bring them in, I don't want to be up and down to a cot all night, it's exhausting.

Ughhh this was me! My god it was a tough few months.
My little boy was breastfed and fell asleep on the boob.

It only got better when he was falling asleep on his own in the cot and finally cracked a good night's sleep with just a couple of wake ups when his dad put him to bed instead of me.

He was clearly after the boob for comfort and I think breastfeeding every hour through the night gave him a sore tummy so beyond 4am I was having to hold him 🥴

You'll get through it!

My LO is 5 months old too and I agree I think this is very normal, most of my friends who have or have had babies the same age are exactly how you describe. Co-sleeping has saved us though and started doing this from quite early on as we were desperate and it’s just continued as it works so well. The only downside is DP has to sleep in another room so it’s not great for intimacy, but the 3 of us do get a decent sleep each night.

Yep totally normal
I bed-share with my DS, he wakes every 1-3 hours (4 months)
Look into 'safe C sleeping'
I think with my first it just slowly got better, about 2 years he slept through. But I think from 1-2 years he still woke up once in the night.
Slowly he just upped how long he slept.
PS I don't shower every day, and sometimes forget to brush my teeth I'm in that much of a daze

Definitely normal, but if you want to try and improve it then there's things that can work for some babies.
Our baby was the same and I was exhausted too, best thing I did was set a routine for bedtime, same time every day which you decide as all babies are different. Adjust to whatever you feel is when they get tired in the evening. Nap times were also the same time every day give or take and it worked really well. Basically his body got used to sleeping at certain times and over time the sleeps got longer and longer. From about 1 he was sleeping 7-7 and would wake up occasionally but I would go in and settle him.
Of course every baby is different but if you want to try then it definitely worked for us. I didn't co sleep as I did it with my first and found my sleep was worse having him in the bed I could never relax and he was always moving. Then getting him into his own bed was really really hard and although I loved having him close I wouldn't do it again.

I really hope you get some sleep soon!

Another thing we did was put him down awake, while I rocked to sleep he was waking all the time and wanted rocking and in the end I was too exhausted to do it. We started putting him to bed awake with a light and lullaby and it was a game changer