hi all, well my DD's sleep regression started at 13 weeks. I was told by an experienced midwife and mum of 3 that it was a 'textbook regression' - DD was sleeping through at 8 weeks, then one day woke up an hour earlier than normal, the next day, another hour earlier, and to my horror, this continued until she was waking at 1am. But also, every single hour after that.
At that point, she required no effort to resettle, just dummy back in. But still, it was tough. I would just be dropping back into a deep sleep and boom, on the hour. I googled 'sleep regression' endlessly and couldn't believe that it might last 6 weeks, I couldnt handle the thought of even one more night of it. Anyway, cut forward nearly 3 months and I was still there.
Except it had gotten worse - resettling was getting harder and harder, and the wakings were getting earlier and earlier, and more frequent, sometimes every ten minutes for hours on end.
I could be heard several times a night saying 'I am literally going to kill myself' except someone would have actually had to murder me because I did not have the energy to commit suicide.
I found out one night that if I brought DD into bed with me, she would sleep pretty much straight through. What a dilemma. As much as I loved waking up and seeing her gorgeous face next to me, I didnt really sleep, I just dozed as was petrified of all of the various co sleeping risks, and my clumsy oaf of a OH. But it got to the point where I just had no energy at night to even try resettling her in her cot especially as I knew that once i brought her into bed, it would be easy until the morning.
I was so miserable with it, and it all came to a head just under two weeks ago when I was at a bbq and couldn't focus on having conversations with people because my eyes were stinging so badly, and my OH sat miserable in the corner nursing a headache. I was speaking to an old school friend who has a 9 year old son and she was sympathising, and said that all her sleep worries were solved when she did CIO at 7.5 months. 13 minutes of crying, one night. She said that those were the 13 longest minutes but it worked.
I got home and just decided I'd had enough. I had reached rock bottom. I couldn't do CIO, I couldn't cope with the thought of DD believing I'd abandoned her, so decided to do a 'gentle' version of CC, setting my minutes to 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10.
First night, she woke as predicted at 11pm, (which had become the worst period to try and resettle her) i left it 2 minutes, went in, 'ssh, ssh', dummy in, back on side. She started to cry again, 4 minutes then the same. She slept until 2am. I could have shouted from the rooftops when i woke and realised the time. I had not slept for more than 2 hours in a row in over a month. The next part was harder as it took 1hr50 mins. I don't know what happened but i was just like a robot. I think i was at such a desperate point, and I knew that i was doing it for both of us, we would both benefit from her being able to settle herself more easily and from her sleeping in her own cot (never mind my marriage) Also, i actually listened to her cry, and she wasn't upset, she wasn't terrified, she was just peed off.
Anyway, the next time she woke me up, it was 730am. Since then, I've never had to go past 6 minutes. She is waking up once, maybe twice a night, but i just put dummy back in and she's gone until the morning.
I also dropped her night feed. She is FF, and I just knew that she didn't really need it.
Anyway, I know it doesn't work for all babies, I know not everyone agrees with it, but I just wanted to share my 'solution' to the sleep regression (touch wood, touch wood, touch wood!)
Good luck to you all. Good job they're cute, hey.