Please help - barely any sleep for 3 weeks, LO is 5 months old!

[AmyRD]

Hi All, I'm hoping someone can help, or let me know whether they've been through the same thing and whether it just passed or if you tried something that worked?!!

My LO was sleeping 7 hours at night (although has never been a brilliant sleeper night or day!) however these last three weeks she has been waking initially after 3 hours, then every 1 - 2 hours and sometimes even staying awake in the small hours for up to two hours whilst mum and dad try to get her back to sleep. At first we thought it was teething however teething gel, calpol etc doesnt seem to work. She has a formula bottle before bed but has started rejecting this of late too. Seem to have tried everything - bedtime routine has remained unchanged. Any ideas if this could be a growth spurt? How long do they usually last??!! So tired my eyeballs feel as though they're going to drop out of my head!!

Yes! We had exactly the same, lasted about 3 weeks. I ended up feeding her 3 times a night in desperation because I couldn't get her back to sleep. In the end we saw a sleep consultant and we're now putting her in the cot awake at bedtime which I think has been instrumental in helping her learn to self-settle. Coincidentally the day we started the sleep training she learnt to roll from tummy to back so I think there was also some developmental frustration going on. Everything's changing so fast at 5 months I think they just work themselves up into a state. Naps went crazy too and have now completely changed (from 1.5 hour-ish waking periods to 2.5-ish). I think some days she was waking so much from exhaustion preventing sleep. I've also notices on days when she is seriously overtired that she won't feed properly before bed.

Like yours, she's not the best sleeper. But at 6 months is now waking usually twice a night which we can handle as she either resettled quickly or I feed her, still get the occasional 45 mins of crying, but we're getting there!

Hope your LO sorts herself out soon.

we had that, I've read about it as 4.5 month or 4 month sleep regression (not that sleep always improves, it doesn't!). My understanding was that his sleep cycles changed, and he woke after every cycle. He was waking every hour or 15 mins. Now (8 months) he wakes at 10 for feed, then at sometime between 2 and 4, then at 5 or 6 for feed and sleeps till 8ish. He woke a lot for 2-3 months. The doctors have told me it's normal and I am getting enough sleep so feel ok.

What helped me was - time, bed sharing - I got not much more sleep but I had my arm on him and it helped him stay asleep and for (I think!) his brain pathways to form to not wake fully or to go back to sleep after waking. Bed sharing was out of desperation but it seemed to help him to be less upset when waking. Also now he's crawling he can turn over and does that between cycles. Also eating more has helped (I know it's not meant to but I think he partly woke from hunger). I try to feed properly on first waking, if it's about 2-3 hours since last feed. I also used some ideas from the No Cry Sleep Solution book. He's still fed to sleep.

I am very glad now I did not do sleep training.