Another thread on 4 month sleep regression

[Britsy]

My 19 week old baby has always been a terrible sleeper, but up until three weeks ago I used to get one long stretch of sleep from 8pm-3am, when he'd wake up for a feed and then sleep again until 6 or 7am.

However, lately he is waking up every single hour, feeds for a few minutes and then falls asleep. I'm not sure whether this is the sleep regression that I have read about as he goes back to sleep once fed with minimum fuss, it's just the frequency of the waking up that is leaving me totally exhausted.

I have tried changing bedtimes/naptimes but to no avail. He is breast fed but even a bottle of formula at night makes no difference to his waking up. Nor does making the room cooler/warmer. I've started co sleeping as I was shattered from constantely getting up but that has made no difference and I worry that this is further habit that I will need to break down the line. It's not as if he'll feed when I'm lying down anyway which is the whole reason why I started co sleeping in the first place.

I'm reluctant to consider weaning yet as he doesn't have any signs of being ready for solids yet and I would like to wait until he's six months old.

Any advice or suggestions on getting him to sleep better would be much appreciated....or is this one of those things that will pass eventually by itself in which case, how much longer do you think it'll be?

No advice I am afraid but sympathy: it is much the same here. DD only 15 weeks and previously a good sleeper. Now she does a longish stretch between 8pm and 1am, but then starts waking up every 1-2 hours thereafter.

Have been doing lots of reading in the subject today, and am going to try doing her daytime feeds in calm dark spots to allow her to focus: she is so interested in everything she doesn't eat for very long during the day, and is therefore possibly catching up at night.

I will let you know how it goes! Hope you get some more useful advice and good luck

I'm going to try the tip about feeding him in calm quiet places too, now that I think about it he certainly doesn't feed as much during the day as he used to - perhaps he's making up for it at night? Let's see.....

Even in a quiet place it seems DD finds things to distract her while eating: smiling at me (very cute), inspecting her hands..

Anyway, I think we had a slight improvement last night: slept between 8 and midnight, then woke up again at 1 and 3, but slept until 7 thereafter.

Discussed the issue with the health visitor who essentially said this is all very normal at this stage and will get better...

Hope you are noticing an improvement!

More sympathy here too - dd is 19wks and slept beautifully till exactly 16 wks then waking every 90 mins and can't really settle on her own at bedtime either...you know what I'm not convinced there's a strategy that will cure it - we are having more better nights but still she wakes, cries has booby for a min or so and goes back off. Just one proper night feed. I really think teething (teeth pressing against nerves in gums) has a lot to do with it as she will chew her fingers as she cries and is bothered by it during the day too. We sleep with cot attached - pulling her nearer to sleep has helped and so has going to bed at 9 with a flask of tea and DH bringing sweets and biscuits up at regular intervals ...I give in to it!!

X

.....you know what, when I really think about it, it seems like its getting much better but I think we are just getting more used to broken sleep, and I'm quicker at popping my boob in, and we are going to bed earlier....hhmmm, Mohammed and the mountain x