How best to sleep train a 4 month old... am tired and desperate

[fromheretomaternity]

DS2 is 4 months old. Slept well when little but has got progressively worse. He can't self settle and has to be fed or rocked to sleep. He generally starts waking any time between 1 and 3. I give him a bf - and am quite relaxed about feeding in the night if he needs it - but the problem is that he will not settle back to sleep, it can take an hour or two and even then he wakes again after an hour or so. Napping during the day, needless to say, is very erratic.

Last night was particularly bad, probably partly because I put him in a sleeping bag rather than the swaddling blanket he had been in, but it's not like he slept well in the swaddle and he was getting too big for it. I have had about three hours sleep and am really shattered.

I started for a few nights putting him in the cot awake then sitting with him and trying to soothe him. The soothing was completely ineffective, he cried for about an hour two nights running then went to sleep.

Now a HV has suggested gradual retreat. The trouble is that this requires him to be in deep sleep before putting him down which seems to take forever (30 minutes or more), otherwise he just stirs in his cot and cries.

I am getting desperate and my other ds's sleep is being affected by the night time crying. I am also struggling to think straight about what to do. Any ideas please? If crying it out works I am ready to do it, as we all can't go on like this.

He is still little!!

Babies have a dreaded 4 month growth spurt, where pretty much any pattern of sleep you had often goes out of the window. He is not settling because he wants more milk, if breastfeeding he is establishing more milk supply and if not, he is growing so wants to be fed more.

I wish I had more advice, hopefully some-one else will come along with some better advice than 'ride it out'. I really feel for you, my DS is now 15 months old, and I still vividly recall his 1-2 hourly waking/feeding at 4 months and me feeling that this would never end.

He doesnt seem hungry though - yes i feed him but he doesnt settle afterwards, and when he properly wakes at 6/7 he is not interested in a feed.

I had a terrible time sleep training ds1 at 6-9 months and want to get into better sleep habits earlier this time.

see here for 4 month sleep regression

he is tiny - you cannot train such a tiny baby to sleep. if you leave him to cry, he will give up eventually, but it is not good for him.

being fed or rocked to sleep is normal at this age.

can you try co-sleeping? it won't be forever.
do you have a DH who can take over at night?

oh your poor thing. sounds rotten.
my dd2 is a rubbish sleeper. I did PUPD at 3mo. I felt awful about it, but i was in a very very bad place.

now at 4mo she is an average sleeper - waking 2-3 times nightly, and only it takes 5-10 mins soothing to be able to put her down.

my thread was here

Fromhere my DS is similar and - based on only last night's attempt, which was unsuccessful - I think he's too little for sleep training, he didn't calm down no matter what and so I think I'm going to have to wait a bit longer (he's coming up to 16 weeks). I think it probably depends on the individual though - I know others have had success with PUPD at this age. It's hard though...

Charlotte, glad your sleep is better!

fromthere and Pidgin, I feel your pain!

My DS is 5 mo. He was a pretty good sleeper until his 3 month birthday and then everything went wrong - he now wakes between 10.30 and 11pm every night and then between 1 and 3 times between then and 6am, at which point I (grudgingly) get up. I've been trying various things over the last couple of months (attempted a daytime routine, tried not feeding at night, etc.) with very limited/no success...

The only thing that I would recommend from my experience so far is to replace rocking and feeding with the 'shhhh pat' method of getting him to sleep (unless he's geniunely hungry, in which case I do feed him). This has worked an absolute treat for us. He still wakes up as often as ever and still can't settle himself back to sleep, BUT shhhh pat is a damn sight less tiring than the endless rocking that I was doing before, and it works a lot more quickly.

The way I do it is to lie him on his side and gently hold his top hand - this just stops him from rolling onto his back. Then I slowly and firmly pat him between the shoulder blades whilst doing a long slow Shhhhhhh near his shoulder (not right into his ear!) I don't pick him up even if he cries, but only because picking him up seems to upset him more - a lot of people do pick up and just use this once their DC has stopped crying, so that's up to you... With our DS this usually works within a couple of minutes if he starts off calm or up to 10 minutes if he's got himself into a state before I get to him. Previously it was taking me up to an hour to rock him to sleep...

Anyway, I don't know whether this will work for you, but it might be worth a try :)

Please please read through the 2 threads on here - 'my baby won't nap' and the 'newborn sleep nightmare'. They are full of excellent advice regarding getting your baby to nap and to self-settle. It's not easy but you are right to think about changing things now.
Good luck!