4 month sleep regression - what do we DO?

[vmcd28]

Ds2 is nearly 16 weeks. I fear he has hit the dreaded sleep regression. My question is, what do we do? Are we meant to try to comfort him back to sleep, or feed him, or what?

The past two nights, his usual lovely 8-7 sleep has gone weird. Two nights ago he had 8oz of formula, went to sleep at 8pm, then woke at 9.45pm, behaving as if he was starving. He wouldn't settle back to sleep, and was behaving as if he wanted back up to play. Dh made another bottle of formula - supposedly as a plan b - but he had all 7 oz!! He went back to sleep at 11.45pm til his usual 7am. This is the ok option.

However, Last night, he slept well from 7pm till 4.30am. He lay grunting and whining and sucking his thumb for approx 80 mins, then started getting upset. When he started crying, I lifted him but he was licking my shoulder wanting fed, bless him. After a bfeed he went back to sleep for an hour then got up at his usual 7am.

He never settles himself to sleep at bedtime - he relies pn being fed to sleep. Similarly during the day he needs fed to sleep or can get to sleep himself in his swing. However he doesn't usually need us to settle him if he wakes during the night. But last night he clearly woke up fully then needed me to sleep again. This is my fear, that we're going to have to regress back to a getting-up-during-the-night scenario again. Bleurgh.

Does anyone have any advice on what we should do to ride the storm? And how do we encourage him to go back to his excellent bedtime hours?

Just feed him.

It WILL pass in a few weeks or so.

If he has managed to sleep all night, he will go back to that again.

He will be haing a growth spurt too.

Btw, he is a a great sleeper!

I have sighed in relief at your confidence. Thank you. :)

He's a great sleeper when he's finally asleep but boy is he hard to put to sleep, hence the reliance of feeding him til he zonks out. Oh, and we don't get a good sleep regardless, because ds2 is still in our room, and he grunts and slurps his fingers all night. Sometimes he actually does a big yell in his sleep? !?

And during the day? No sign of self settling and no sign of any routine, so it's not all easy :)

I see it a little differently given my own experience in that I would have to encourage you to look to work on the self settling sooner rather than later, regardless of this being a possible unsettled period for LO.

From wks 15-20ish, sleep did go down hill AND dd put on an enormous amount of weight (about 4-5lb! Although she had some catching up to do I was still shocked), so watch out for growth spurts over the next few wks. Looking back my thought is if little brains are working overtime due to developmental leaps and causing night wakings, not being able to self settle is where it can all unravel.

Subsequently as we moved towards 5 months, in our case, I didn't find things going back to normal, and we have had to put a lot of effort into helping her improve her naps and nights, we are now getting there at 22-23 wks but it has not been fun.

Thanks for your reply. This is what I feared!
Do you have any tips in how to encourage sleeping without feeding? Did you use controlled crying?

I started to use shush pat (baby whisperer thing) but things like womb noise/white noise are good still at this age and I think I missed a trick there .

If you are going to change how you do things, do expect crying because baby just doesn't understand and will be confused, but personally I'm not OK with 'leaving' baby to cry for any length of time, unless its a protesting and cross cry rather than distressed cry. The BW techniques do not involve leaving baby to cry at all so appeal to me.

I was feeding to sleep and stopped all of it and went through the pain barrier, but I knew I had to as my nephew was waking hourly at 15 months through being fed to sleep and held for naps and I just knew I couldn't deal with it. Finally she got the message (it required steely determination on my part though - took longer than I had hoped) and she will go to sleep very fast using this now and is improving generally with her sleep. If you decide to get a baby whisperer book, you want the 'solves all your problems' one, I bought the wrong one at first.

Just to add, I made a pact with myself that however long it took I would see baby go to sleep using shush pat and never cave in and feed her to sleep. This is the hard bit, but I felt its not fair to baby to be inconsistent if you are making a big change in their little lives like that. I put my baby to bed 4 times in 24 hours (3 naps a day) so I did it for all sleeps to help her get the message. I wished I had not delayed to be honest. There are those who say you can't 'sleep train' before x many of months, when it comes to the gentler techniques (I dont know about CIO/CC and the like) I think the longer you leave it the harder it is - also the heavier baby gets!

Thanks for your info - I will have a look online later for the BW books. I used the bw website a lot when ds1 was wee but actually forgot all about it til now! So thanks!
Ds2 has ocean sounds on his mobile, so we play that each night when he's having his bedtime bottle, and we have it on if he's put into his cot awake. He's not one for relaxing to sleep though. If he's tired when he gets put to bed, he almost wakes up again, iykwim. He does the opposite of relax!
I think the bw will be a big help. I guess I'd be best to ride through the sleep regression thing for a bit to see what happens? I'll maybe set a deadline of a few days, til the bw book arrives :)

I'm not a fan of leaving a baby to cry themselves to sleep either.
What did you do if ds happened to doze off being fed? Would you try to keep her awake so you could put her in the cot drowsy?

It's all a minefield!

Thanks again.

I sat her up and read her a bed time story even if head was all floppy! Then did the little routine, swaddle, shush pat etc. Interestingly I put her to bed just now she was falling asleep as I fed her, but I wanted to hear her burp so sat her up, did two pages of the book, she burped then got the hiccups but was so drowsy with the routine before I got to the shushpat, I put her down dosing off huccupping (not a word is it?) away! So it does work However it was pretty horrible though persisting with it and it took me at least two weeks - I probably have a stubborn one though.

That said, other times she does protest, and I get her as calm as I can, lay her down and with my cheek to hers, still almost 'holding' her in the bed I shush away getting quieter and queter until she's off. If she starts up, I do it over and pick her up (just dont let baby fall asleep on you, but in the cot). Other times I can practically plonk her down and walk out. I do honestly think the lack of ability to self settle can come back to bite and is something to tackle sooner rather than later. Well what do I know, I'm a first time mum, all I can say is this is what happened with us.

The only other advice I can give is dont be afraid to let baby have a bit of a whiney cry, I don't mean distressed crying, but jumping at the first whimper was also my mistake. And, you will get crying if you go cold turkey on feeding to sleep because thats what he knows. I can't say I have unbroken nights, but I'm getting more of them and she naps like a good'en!! HTH

I totally agree with sedgiebaby - think self-settling is really important. It was the key to sleep with DD1. DS2 has zero self-settling skills as a result of reflux and I think we need to sort it out sooner rather than later, but I just can't face doing PUPD. He's nearly 18lb and I've already got horribly painful wrists!

Second what others have said though, your DS2 sounds like he is basically a fab sleeper. I'm sure you'll get there soon.

hey vmcd - our DD (15 wks BF, feeds/cuddles to sleep always) is also going through a sleep regression. she has a cold at the moment but when recovered i will also be doing some gentle no cry sleep training to help her learn how to settle herself. she has never been a great sleeper but has always been ok. she had colic the first three months so never went down before 11pm ish but the past four weeks or so she has gone down at 7/8 ish (takes an hour or so but oh joy of joys not to see her so upset) and then used to wake 2/3 times, however, the past week she has woken almost every hour. ouch! do you fancy tackling this together? i have just read pantley's no cry sleep solution and no cry nap solution and have a vague plan forming in my head but would love to chat to someone about it. my head is so sleep addled due to lack of sleep i cant see the wood for the trees.

ps - congrats on having such a good sleeper. sounds like the right ingredients are there. i think DD has them too. just need to gently steer her in the right direction....

Hi, all! Thanks for the advice. It really is very much appreciated.
Ds2 didn't nap well during the day, but he got his bedtime bottle and bed at 7pm. I did shush/pat to get him to sleep. It was a struggle - not least because I started having lots of questions! He was asleep by 7.10pm.
At 8pm he was wide awake again. He gooed and gaahed in his cot so we left him to it. Should we have gone in to shush him...?
At 9 pm he was getting upset but was behaving as if he was hungry so we fed him. He had another 7 ounces. Growth spurt?
He still seemed to have no desire to sleep but content when we put him down, so again we left him to it. Again, is this where we should be doing shush/pat to push him back into a sleep?
Anyway after the crying eventually began again, and a LOT of shush/pat, it was midnight til he was asleep. I'd been awake 20hrs by this point so was verging on suicidal. And I have a migraine today cos of the lack of sleep plus tension! ! Thankfully he slept til 7.45am.

This morning, I did S/P for his nap. It worked within 10 mins! Again, a lot of angry crying cos there was no boob in his mouth, but after a few short PUPDs he did actually start to doze off. But I'm never sure if he's calming down per se, or just wearing himself out with the crying so just gives up. Anyway, he only slept 30 mins. Ugh. He woke up quite quiet, but was crying a lot within a few mins so I went up to him. He seemed hungry so I fed him. He had a full bfeed2 hrs after last bfeed, so I'm certain this is a growth spurt! He still seemed drowsy but every time I winded him he'd ping back into life. So should I have put him back to bed and done more S/P? I brought him downstairs but he's already getting cranky, and it's only an hour since he woke. I don't want to start a pattern where he has hundreds of short naps. Ugh.

Will his naps get longer as he gets used to this new way of being put yo sleep?
He's not used to napping in his cot, which prob doesnt help either.
Are we doing the wrong thing tackling this during a growth spurt?
If he wakes during the night, do we shush him back to sleep even if he seems content? When he woke at 4am the other night, he was awake for 2 hrs as if it was morning.
Are we right in tackling everything at once? I.e cold turkey from feeding to sleep, AND naps in the cot too? I don't want to give mixed messages.
If he wakes crying, how do I really know if he's hungry or just needing settled to sleep? Often his cues are the same because he wants the comfort of bfeeding.

Sorry for so many questions! Hopefully one of you will have a few mins to answer.

Eddy, thank you, I'd be more than happy to go through this with you :)

I've done this with dd (16wo). THE most important thing is not to give up. Don't give in to those - "oh but it could be a growth spurt"/"is he hungry?"?/"maybe he has a cold" / "am I doing it right?" worries.
We ALL have those and if you're not careful you do it half-heartedly and apart from not working, it's not fair on him.
I think it's better to do everything at once - decide where you want him to sleep, for how long and at what time and STICK TO IT come hell or high water for a couple of weeks.

He will cry.
BUT, you will be there ready to comfort with a quick hug, patting, shushing and lots of loving. It is not the same as leaving him to cry.

At first, I responded to even small whimpers and Pantley (or is it the baby whisperer?) says to go in quickly when they wake up at the 30-45minute mark and settle them before they really wake up too much. After a week or so when you see a response you can start to reduce the amount you need to do and leave him to any whimpering to encourage self-settling.

I wondered at first what was the difference between what we were doing and the shush/patting. It felt like exchanging one prop for another. But there is a big difference. I have just put DD in her cot for her long nap and she grumbled a bit (with her eyes closed!) and I stroked her head a bit and.....zzzzzz!
We are now in our fourth week after starting and I can't tell you what a difference there is - keep at it.

I agree with gummymum.

Except to add I think you know when the growth spurt is going on and it tends to just be about 3 days or so IME - if like mine he'll be hungry like a child possessed and suddenly bringing forward feeds. But try not to feed to sleep, even if you sit him up to burp and then shush pat and then put in the cot, hopefully it creates a disconnect. You could make a 'rule' that if it is x amount of time since the last BF that you will resettle only - I did something like this, just to stop me presenting a boob at every waking, whilst still being ready to feed a genuinely hungry baby.

I went cold turkey on feeding to sleep, naps in the pram and nights into the pushchair with all sleeps in the new cot. It was all going pete tong anyway with sleep so I didn't think I had much to lose.

I dont rush in to resettle her at 40 mins now, I often hear her but she squawks and goes back to sleep, if he isn't going to settle and its a 'long nap' time, then do it but be prepared for it to last the rest of the nap time.

If I hear baby gurgling happily away and it is still time in which she should be asleep, I leave her in the hope she will self settle, if she doesn't it will probably turn into crying

I don't find it easy to navigate around but there is lots of info/faq's on shushpat thing on the BW site, but I am glad I got the book as it is really detailed on all kinds of sleep issues.

It is exhausting and tedious and boring and stressful isn't it? But as my mum kept telling me, not not as much as it would be in several months time if you chose to delay it with a bigger heavier baby who could stand up in their cot and yell at you!!

Oh and if dd wakes at any point before 6 its shush pat until she's asleep however long it takes me, even if it isn't worth it (as I don't really get more sleep for it that morning) because she will just do it every morning after that otherwise. I can't take the day starting with anything beginning with a 5.

Thanks so much! You are helping to keep me sane! ! Ds1 was always able to self settle - by luck possibly - so this is all a bit new.
So this nap started at 1210 and he woke at 1255. I rushed up and it took 15 mins of S/P and picking him up 3 times when he was sobbing for hm o go back to sleep. But I can hear that he's woken again, just 10 mins later. :(
If he was in his swing he'd have slept 2hrs!! Hopefully it'll go back to that one day.
I'm still unclear about what to do. It's three hrs since last feed but won't offer a feed unless I can't settle him again

OH......MY.....GOD.
I tiptoed up to peek in, and.....
He had settled back to sleep!!!!

vmcd - love your last post. well done. it's almost like they know when we need a boost isnt it?! how long did he sleep for? and how did it go this evening?

DD had her 4 month jabs today and also has a cold so all naps have been in the pram and i fed to sleep this evening as ususal. i didnt have the heart to introduce a new regime while she is under the weather. but after putting her in her cot this evening (7.30ish) she woke up so i left her to see if she would settle but her chatting turned to cries i went back in and cuddled her and she fell asleep on me. she then woke up again as i put her down so i gently put my hands on her and shushed and after holding my finger for a few mins (so lovely) ] she then fell asleep. is this self settling? ha ha i suspect not, how many props did i use . but on the upside, i didnt, technically feed to sleep. which in my book is a step forward.

i had thought that i would tackle the evening self settling seperately from the day time naps but having caught up on here i now think i might do the naps too. will be a hellish few days as she simply wont nap in her cot in the day but might be worth a go. i will start on monday. are you doing it all at once too?

Sedgiebaby and gummymum - How did you manage to stop your LO getting over tired when you first started naps in the cot? Or is it inevitable do you think? I had thought that I would try for a fixed amount of time each nap to get her to settle in her cot, say 30 mins, and if it doesnt work abandon it, revert to the pram so she gets some sleep and then attempt it again at the next nap? Or am i just prolonging the agony?

Eddy, go for it as soon as she's well.
I've had a wonderful, pride-filled day doing nothing except concentrating on ds2's sleeping. A week ago I'd have bet a LOT of money that it would have taken days of crying to get to this stage. [Trying not to count my chickens emoticon]

Basically I started the new routine last night. I read that it's best to start at bedtime rather than in the morning - not sure why. As has already been said, do NOT give in. If the baby gets mixed messages or knows that you'll give in then it's never going to work. (Listen to me, all experienced after one day!!)

As gummymum said, just go for it with ALL naps. Might as well tackle everything, rather than nights just now, then daytime, then transition to the cot...
Just decide, as of [whenever] the new rule starts, for everything, without ever going back to the old routine.

Until today, ds2 had only ever had one brief daytime nap in his cot. They were always in his moses basket or bouncy chair to begin with, and only in his swing for the past few weeks. And always after being fed, usually til he was fully asleep.

Here's what happened today - sorry its so long...
Oh, and I don't swaddle him, we use sleeping bags.

Ds2 up at 8am
Fed 0840, after getting ds1 out to school.
Bouncy chair and play mat and sitting on my lap

• First nap. When he started rubbing his face and chewing his hands I took him upstairs to the darkish bedroom. By the time I did a quick nappy change and put on his sleeping bag, he was getting cross. It took ages to do the initial vertical settling down before even getting him in the cot! But I persevered, despite him screeching in my ear, and actually he calmed down after a few mins of hurting my ear. I put him down and he started wailing the second he was on the mattress. I tried ssh/pat for a couple of mins but he wasnt having it, so I lifted him and did s/p on my shoulder . Again it took a good few mins to settle him. Same thing happened when I put him down. This happened a few times - I prob picked him up approx 7 or 8 times but didn't count the exact nbr, annoyingly.

30 min nap. I got him up cos I didn't know what else to do, but I should have tried to shush him back to sleep. Feed. Activity time.

• Nap 2. Again, took him upstairs as soon as he started to look/behave tired. Followed the same routine. He settled on my shoulder quicker this time but was equally furious when I put him down. Did s/p but his crying was getting louder and insistent so I Picked him up to calm him down again. This time I only needed PUPD three times! I shushed and patted him till he was asleep. He woke 30 mins later but, as per previous post, he settled himself back to sleep.

45 mins later he woke up. I want this sort of time of day to be a long nap, so when I heard him wake I flew upstairs to stop him fully waking, and s/p him back to sleep. It only took a few mins. He slept a further 45 mins. Feed. Cuddle/chat/ singing on my knee. Play gym.

• Nap 3. Followed same routine. He settled quicker at the start. He wasn't pleased when I put him in the cot but wasn't as upset as before. It built up to proper crying even tho I was doing s/p. This time he only needed picked up ONCE. I did s/p for a few mins, but then I left him as he was so relaxed and sucking his thumb. I went to check him 8 mins later and he was asleep!! I nearly cried :)

He slept 40 mins. I did s/p again til he was relaxed (without picking him up) then left the room. I have no idea if he went back to sleep but I don't think so. But I left him there sucking his thumb and resting. Got him up when he started gooing and squealing happily 35 mins later.

• Bedtime. Had bath, got him ready for bed, put on grobag etc. Fed him his bottle. Each time he started to doze I winded him to wake him up again.

Followed same routine, again only needing to pick him up once, cos he was calm after that. Left him calm and sucking his thumb. He fell asleep on his own again! 4hrs later he's still asleep.

Things I noticed -
he was FURIOUS with me for trying to put him in the cot without a boob in his mouth! Furious! I ignored the not-getting-my-own-way crying until it turned into upset-crying.
The initial calming down stage got shorter each time.
The PU stage got shorter each time.
The first two naps, my face was right beside his to shush him, so he knew I was there and didn't get frightened.
The first two naps, I shushed him til he was asleep, the last nap and bedtime, he didn't need me there at all.
And it's amazing how LONG a few minutes seems when a furious baby is shouting in your ear.
Also, I genuinely have a sore/weird eardrum this evening, so I'd highly recommend cotton wool in the ear that'll be beside the baby! Seriously!

He seems really comfy going to sleep lying on his side. Twice I had to roll him slowly onto his back when he was asleep, and twice he did it by himself.

Note - do not rock, bounce, walk or cradle baby, just stand still, shushing and patting.

Eddy, hopefully you'll have a better night.

I hope tonight goes well, and that tomorrow is as rewarding as today has been. I just feel so pleased. And stressed. But it was worth it... And relax.

X

thanks for starting this thread.
dd2 is in the throes of sleep regression. she used to wake around 12 and 4, then up at 6, which was fine. noe it's every hour from 11pm.

the last couple of days i tried bfing her at every waking, to see if she would sleep longer, but it didn't work . she would take a bf, but not for long. so tonight i think we will return to bfing every 3-4hours only, as she manages this by day. i'll be reading the posts avidly to glean advice .

Hi - saw your question, I just stuck to the cot. Sometimes I was the entire nap period trying to get her to nap, then it was a feed time so we just had to forget it and bring forward the next nap. When you have time, read the long long 'baby won't nap' thread still live on here, you will get lots of ideas. The main thing in my mind is to be consistent or it is really frustrating for baby. I'm no expert I hasten to add this is just my experience with my first baby a little older and similar situation as yourself, nonetheless I hope it is helpful in some way.

Charlotte, can your dd settle herself to sleep? I think this is the root of our problem, that ds is/was reliant on feeding himself to sleep. But yesterday was a success, and I will not give in now! Does she nap well during the day? I do notice that ds has his best nighttime sleeps after a day where he has napped well and is well rested

Ds was a lot more resistant to go down for his nap today, so it took 16 mins this morning, but it did work. The key to this seems to be the calming down stage. Once ds snaps out of the initial angry crying and flailing, he starts to relax quite quickly. This morning he got more and more annoyed so I had to shout ""ENOUGH!" just to snap him out of it!!
Just a small point, I agree that being consistent is really Important, but in addition to this you have to be confident too. I.e. don't start questioning everything and don't start panicking or getting tense cos that won't help either. Yesterday morning, the way ds was carrying on, I'd never have believed he'd even have relaxed, but he did and went to sleep.

However, Ds has always been able to settle BACK to sleep once he's gone down for the night, hence his great night sleeping.

hi vmcd28
she can self-settle (sucking fingers) but mostly chooses not too . i cuddle her and rock in the rocking chair until her eyelids close, and then pop her in the cot before she's in a deep sleep. often her eyes will ping open but we leave her to resettle unless she's properly crying (as opposed to having a bit of a whimper).

she is generally a poor napper despite our best efforts. she tends to go off well, but gets stuck at 45mins, and then won't be resettled.

oops - charlotte here having a name change!

Charlotte/Victorian :) I'm sure the short/poor naps are at least part of your problem. If she's waking at 45 mins then she's waking at the end of a sleep cycle and therefore never getting a proper sleep. Is it worth going for a long drive or walk, to try to encourage a longer sleep? I'm sure I've seen discussions on mn about short naps