Please help! 4 month sleep regression

[Cosyreader1]

It seems we have hit the dreaded 4 month sleep regression. My little one has gone from sleeping good 5/6 hour stretches, sometimes slightly longer to waking every couple of hours again. She is EBF and we usually feed to sleep then I'd transfer her into the next to me cot with no issue. She'd wake for a feed or 2 in the night and again settle back without much fuss. Everytime I attempt to transfer her now she's fussing minutes later, I've tried waiting it out but this becomes a full blown cry. She'll happily go back to sleep on me/in my bed but ideally I don't want to co-sleep (we did at times when she was newborn). I tried all other techniques during one of her wake ups last night (rocking, shushing, patting, white noise, dummy, she was fed & changed) and it took 2.5 hours to get her back to sleep from which she then woke up 45 mins later. This has been going on a few weeks now but seems to be getting worse if anything. Her daytime naps have also gone off so i just feel like i get no break! Please can anyone offer some advice/their experience and how you got through it.

There are lots of instagram accounts etc where you can follow a course. It just depends on what you’re comfortable with. We did cry it out (very easy for us and barely any crying so I didn’t really get a chance to change my mind!) others prefer no cry methods. Some cosleep. Have a look at @ cozybabysleep On instagram for ideas and middle ground. Unfortunately their sleep patterns change permanently at 4 months or so. Generally get are much harder to transfer into the crib.

Firstly, this is extremely common so you are not alone. At 4 months their brains progress massively and suddenly light sleep is introduced. Until now it's only really been deep sleep or awake. She is developing expected!

Like with all things parenting, how we manage sleep divides a room. I personally wasn't against letting them cry - I needed to sleep, and so did they. You could look up the Ferber method which typically takes 3 days, so not too much crying, but this is recommended for 6 months plus (I had 2 months of terrible sleep until then). I also found that me sleeping near hindered them
a bit. I didn't co sleep but they were in a next to me crib. I found that they would stir, sense me, and then be awake and want to play - something they can't do when they're on a few weeks old. Moving them into their own room
reduced the wake ups as I wasn't around.

I keep toying with the idea of it but I don't know if I could do it as she doesn't just cry, she screams. I'll have a look at the account and see if I can find some middle ground as you say! Thanks

@Nearlyamumoftwo Yes, I've tried to reframe my thinking to the fact that actually it's completely normal and shows she's developing. I have considered the ferber for when she's a little bit older so may be a case of going with it until then. I've also thought about moving her into her cot a little earlier to see if that helps as I did wonder. It sounds like it did for you, what age did you make the move?

Do you have a partner who would help? When mine was that age, LO works only settle if I BF, but partner could get LO to sleep with patting.

We got hit by 4 months sleep regression hard!!! I waited out until 7 months in hope that baby will start sleeping better but it actually got worse. I was breastfeeding at the time, we ended up co-sleeping which I was dead against but sleep deprivation took over.
At 7 months did sleep training using Ferber, but I never let baby cry longer than 10min. My baby still kept waking up at midnight but instead of letting her cry I rubbed her back until she fell asleep and started feeding only once at night no earlier than 1am. Also stopped feeding to sleep around that time, did feeding before bath to break sleep associations that massively helped with night wakes.
No regrets about sleep training, from waking every hour she woke up max twice and from 8 months slept through the nights or woke up once. Like others said you do what you feel comfortable with. Also every baby is different what works for one might not work for the others.