4 month old (#2) not sleeping

[Auster]

2nd time around seems worse than the first one ... Can anyone help? Our 4-month old is showing no signs of sleeping through. He goes down around 7.30, then wakes around 10, and may or may not go back to sleep. At best, will do 2-3 hour stints from then on in. With a 3-year old as well, we are shattered. No.2, like No.1, is completely breastfed, and we want to keep it that way. Does anyone have any suggestions? We are getting desperate trying to keep the show on the road...

Many thanks.

Auster, not much help or advice but reassurance that my DS2 was much worse than DD1 at sleeping. Thought it must be what I was doing differently but now he is 9 months and only recently started sleeping well (sorry), I know it is just him.

Have you read Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution. I can post it to you if you CAT me your details.

4 months is still weeny..

Four months seems to be a bit of a flashpoint for babies! There have been loads of threads along these lines - it seems that the phase lasts for anything from a few days to a few weeks to, well, quite a lot of weeks! Seven in our case.... Bl**dy nighmare at the time. All of a sudden it got better, seemingly without us doing anything much different. I coped with the relentless "up every two hours for a feed" by taking up every offer to take DB for a walk while I caught up on some sleep. Sorry - this is probably what you really don't want to hear. Fingers crossed your DB's phase only lasts a few days.

My second was a bit of a pain in the butt when it came to sleeping but, touch wood, she seems to have sorted herself out. It only happend once she started solids though (she's 6 months now and I started her two weeks ago). I was up and down like a yo-yo night after night as well as dealing with ds1 so, like you, knackered. You just have to ride through it and their sleep patterns do change eventually. I did start feeding a bottle at 10.30pm but gave up on that after a couple of weeks as it seemed to be breaking her sleep cycle and just fed her when she woke up. When she went for three nights of not waking up at the usual time, I dropped that feed and got her to settle back to sleep by other means. It is a hard time and I sympathise with your situation but hold in, it does get easier as they get older (she's still a dreadful napper...1/2 hour at a time!)

Thanks for the support everyone . I too have followed the '4-month problem' threads, and this does seem to be a recurring theme. Also, a bit of perspective has been restored with a bit more sleep in the last couple of nights (including 1 4-hour stretch!), and 4 months does also seem early.

My 5-month old was sleeping quite well until about 6 weeks ago and now she's in bed with me all night, nuzzled up to me, grazing on me goodness knows how many times a night. Every "bad" habit in the book. She's my 3rd. My two boys slept right through from 6 weeks! My FiL (a doctor) laughed and said "that's what we call reversion to the mean!"

I've decided the solution lies in how I deal with it rather than how she actually sleeps (given up on trying to get her to sleep!). So I remind myself how nice it is to get all these lovely cuddles, and I sniff her sweet little head in a knackered and demented kind of way.
So no words of advice but you have my sympathy .

My 10 month old (no2) is absolutely bloody appalling. UP all hours, won't go in her cot. No naps by day. Makes me want to cry, actually. I thought ds was the ultimate nightmare, but they are both nightmares, just different ones.