Anyone on for another 4 month sleep regression hand-holding thread?!

[uppereastsidemom]

DD2 is 16 weeks and had been doing 7pm - woken up at 11.30ish for a feed - 5 or 6am. Happy days.

She is now waking up anytime between 7 and 10pm, going back down but reliably waking up for 2-3 hours between 3 and 6am. It is torture. I know this is a predictable phase that will pass, but christ it is miserable.

Waiting to see what tonight brings . I know there had been an active thread that seems to have died - hopefully meaning that all those babies are now sleeping beautifully

Our boy has been getting worse gas in the night too. I hope nk its his digestive system maturing

Think not hope nks.

Morning , can i join in please now that I've stopped sobbing. Ds was 4months last week. Co slept from.about 7-8weekswhen he was waking himself on his Moses basket and the cot bed seemed huge. Was going to bed with me after sleeping downstairs for the evening. Feeding around 10am and then twice more in the night but all very settled. Occasional early morning wide awake hour.

Now though. Is feeding almost constantly through the night. Awake around 3 for an hour or more. Playing. Git back to sleep on my shoulder but just so tricky to move. Dozed for half hour then awake crying.

Cannot CANNOT settle other than on boob. "put down drowsy not aslkeep" Seriously?!!! Makes me want to swear.

Dh is useless. Seriously thinking he needs to leave. No help at all and makes more work for me by being here. Selfish. Or is it just because I'm tired?

Ugh rant over. Will revisit when i feel slightly more sane.

Ds fallen asleep on my lap. I've hardly slept but scared to.move him.

Notta - my boy has been the same for possibly 4 weeks now. But he has improved a bit. Last night was better. Awake every hour from 2, but the previous night he was awake every 30 minutes.
We're co-sleeping and feeding lying down. It's taken this long for me to work out how to position properly.

I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse Saranga!

We do co sleep and feed laying down and have done since 7-8 weeks although recently he's Nk been keen on some occasions. For no apparent reason - maybe a bit of reflux. I feel better in the day time but its just so shit when its happening isn't it?

I at least need to kick 'D'H into the spare room as May commit murder if he huffs /flounces one more time.

Oh ffs. The boy has been asleep for half an hour, not even my sneezes have woken him, and I'm wide awake.

I've been driven to posting on the one thread I hoped...PRAYED...I wouldn't have to.

My DS is formula fed. Had been sleeping well (9-4 then again til 6/7 after feed). I would wake every day feeling refreshed and happy, and ready to attend to my 'needy' boy during the day. Not 'needy' in the sense of crying, etc. (he actually rarely properly cries) but in the sense that he has never been a big napper and grumbles and grizzles if he's not getting 100% attention. After a VERY rough first month (borderline PND, harmful thoughts, etc.) I was starting to feel human again and actually enjoy my son. We had some major issues with wind early on too but these seemed to resolve themselves.

He turned 14 weeks on Saturday. He was 2 weeks overdue, so effectively 16 weeks from his due date. He has started 'sleeping' horribly. I'm still settling him down to bed at 8 and he's still drifting off around 8.45. So he CAN get himself to sleep. But whereas he used to then sleep til 3/4am he's now waking at 11. Then 12. Then 1. Then 2 (which is usually when I relent and feed him). Then, if I'm lucky he'll drift off until 5. If I then drag him into bed with me (he's in a snuzpod) I might get another hour out of him. Oh, and the wind (farting and leg thumping) has returned with a vengeance too, despite having made no changes to his formula.

I thought it might just be the odd night, but it's now been EVERY NIGHT for the last 5 days, so a definite pattern of sleep fuckery is emerging. None of my friends' babies had this so was praying I'd dodge it too. Should've known!

Am starting to feel the old symptoms returning; short temper, tearfulness, feelings of just wanting to walk away and leave him. And that's just after 5 days. What if this goes on for months!?

And I can't sleep when he sleeps during the day because he just doesn't. Never has really. And because he's now not sleeping at night either my happy, docile, placid little man is rapidly becoming an angry zombie during the day which is wearing me even thinner. At least the first few rough weeks DH was on paternity leave and could help out, now I'm flying solo- it's not fair to expect him to lose out on sleep (although he often offers) because he has to be vaguely switched on for work.

So. Here I am. In the one place I hoped I'd never be. No offence.

Hi packer.... don't believe your friends! It's inevitable that all babies go thru the regression. It's fantastic your little man was doing so well before. I'd pretty much bet that he'll return to this pattern once the regression passes.
In the meantime you just have to hunker down and accept the rough sleep as hard as that is. I'm sorry you had such a rough first month. With that in mind can you call in the cavalry? Family? Friends? Can hubby taken a couple of days off or even just an afternoon to help you catch up on sleep?

How is everyone. I've not posted in a while not because things have improved just because I'm bored of hearing myself complaining about no sleep!! DS seems particularly wakeful at the mo and sure enough think we're hitting the next wonder week. Sigh....!

Morning everyone.

DD is 11 months tomorrow and within the last 3-4 weeks or so has now decided that she's going to wake up during the night for a good 3-4 hrs and it is killing us.

Usual bedtime is around 9pm these days with a nap during the day (she averages about an hr to 2hrs during the day) and until recently she'd be down all the way through until 7am. However now she's going down for a couple of hours at night and staying awake, if you try to lie her down either in the cot or next to you then she'll start crying out as all she wants to do is play. When my DW puts her on the breast that might get her back off (it used to all the time, now it's unlikely) but generally we're awake. This morning she managed to drop off at about 05:45. DD sleeps in her cot in our room...or she used to!

I don't get the worst of it tbh, DW in general is awake with her more than I am as I work full-time and she stays at home so she can at least try to catch up on sleep during the day and I feel horrible & guilty about this because I don't want her to suffer alone at night, she's getting to that stage where she looks like she might crack at any point and we've both got no idea really how to cope. I am trying to share the burden with her more in the sense of making sure things around the house get done, ensuring DS (10yrs) is sorted and generally trying to make things easier, encouraging DW to get more sleep when I'm at home and so forth & am trying also to share the night time burden too albeit at the cost of how I perform at work. I feel like as a couple we now get fuck all time to ourselves, we're both tired and stressed out, sex life is virtually non-existent and I feel about 10yrs older than I was yesterday. DD (until now) had been extremely good with sleeping, teething etc and hasn't been too much of a challenge so this is all coming as a huge shock, and perhaps the worst part about it is feeling like you cannot rationalise why this is happening or what you can do to help ease it.

Thanks for reading. Now if you'll excuse me I have some rocking in the corner to do.....

Packer - I'm offering many many hugs.
Darth - no advice really, but glad that husbands suffer too. Not meaning that vindictivelyy, just that it is isolating doing the nights alone.

whispers I think we're getting better... I'm sure my boy has been feediing less manically the last two years evenings and nights, and has been up a bit less in the night. He is awake from about 6 wanting to get up but I'm refusing too.
Maybe he's coming out of it?

Hugs to everyone old and new! Darth - agree with Saranga that it's good to get a husband's perspective on here! You sound like you're an excellent support to your DW. No advice sorry apart from batten down the hatches, get family and friends involved to give you both support and relief, and know that this will pass. Do what you need to do to get through it.

Like Starfish, I've not posted recently because it's same old, same old! Some nights better than others. Last two nights were shit.

I'm going to work on some gentle sleep training I think. Starting with...trying to get her to settle in her cot in that elusive state 'drowsy but awake' breaks into hollow laughter That's going to go down well with this kid, who bawls and bawls if she doesn't get her booby nightcap. But gotta feel like I'm doing something, right??

That should have read 'drowsy but awake' state. Clearly the missing word was drowned out by the hollow laughter...

Purple - when you crack that one lwt me know. we've tried drowsy but awake. All that happens us he wakes up, wants to play then cries with tiredness.

Annoyingly my DS does sometimes go to sleep on his own at bedtime however it makes FUCK ALL difference to him being able to stay asleep more than 2 hrs at a time...! Good luck purple x

I would kill for two hours at a time...

Thanks Saranga and Purple, and glad to be able to give a dads perspective.

For what it's worth I actually don't feel like I suffer enough or suffer an equal share if you like. As I said earlier I don't get the brunt of it and while my DW obviously doesn't want me to be awake and knackered for the working day at the same time I know she resents being awake all night alone with DD and who can blame her? I feel that I should perhaps take more of that burden at night and will try to, I guess the one issue is that I might have to wake her for a booby feed. At the very least I might make a pot of coffee and stay up out of solidarity and then when they both nod off I can do a few bits around the house before going to work (or if I'm lucky then maybe watch one of the films DW hates ). I guess I just want to feel like I am doing everything I can in a situation that neither of us can really control, and make sure DW doesn't snap (or me for that matter). Certainly don't believe that one parent should do all of this themselves, and for those that do.....well I doff my cap to those hero's and heroines!!!

It is comforting to know I'm not alone in this though and reading this thread is quite comforting. Here's hoping that those who desperately need sleep find some tonight!!!

Darth - my fella doesn't help at nights but that's bc he's awful with no sleep and so by agreement I do nights solo, otherwise we'd both be sleep deprived and have killed each other by now. It works for us, buy if you can manage to help out I imagine that's a massive comfort to your wife.

Darth - my DH doesn't help at all, I've banished him to another room as he works long hours and I can't be doing with him being ratty with me as well as me being tired etc etc. So it sounds like you're being really supportive BUT if it's making you snap at each other then don't think it's the worse thing if you leave your wife to it as long as you support her in other ways - let her nap when you are at home or just let her veg. I wish my DH would sometimes just take the baby away for an hour, even if I can't sleep just to let me watch trashy tv or something! It sounds like your bedtime is really late though, can you move it forwards?

We're doing ok here, gone to fully co-sleeping which means I do sleep, DD just wakes for feeds and goes straight back to sleep which is great, but I lose count of how many feeds she has, it's just a bleary mess/fog.

Evening all. DS currently feeding to sleep. Last night was so much better than Sunday. He had a good evening sleep then fed to sleep by 9 and woke at 1.30!!!! I made sure i got to sleep early too (not usually so good at that) so had 4 hrs. Fab. The rest of through night wasn't at all good with me sitting up holding him, cluster feeds etc but that first stretch made a huge difference.

Darth - DH just sod all but grumble and moan but tbd i don't want help (he can't do much when i am bf ) but would like him to bugger off to the spare room. Good on you for doing other stuff though. Mine does none of that either.

Packer - i despair in the small hours. It seems an impossible task to keep on. For me though, it improves a lot in the day and getting out helps loads. Hope you can get some RL help/support.

How was everyone's nights? We started off well - waking at 1130 then 230 for feeds. But she took ages to settle after that, slept for an hour, woke at 430 crying, and was pretty much awake from then on. I couldn't get back to sleep after the 230 waking :( luckily DH took her and I managed about half an hour's sleep. Feeding her now and hoping she'll sleep.

I really worry about how little sleep she's getting. It clearly affects her as shes so tired during the day. I just don't understand why she fights it so much! What can I do to help her?

Someone has posted on here about their baby sleeping too much. I do appreciate that it's a concern...But it's not something I want to read after four hours awake with eyeballs that feel like they've been dipped in concrete :(

Spoke too soon. Had a terrible night. Maybe had a 2 hour stretch at one point, then it was 1 hour and half hourly stretches.

Crap night here too... 1030, 1ish and 3ish wake ups then up at 430 as couldn't get back to sleep (well unless 10 mins counts). I'm sick of starting my day at 4/5am and not being able to nap in the day.

Purple I honestly think this is now the next wonder week... Might have to start a new thread.

If I could crawl under a rock today I would!

Have definitely had worse nights than last night. DD took a while to settle, she got to sleep properly about midnight after a few false starts but then slept through until about 5ish. She was happily lying in her cot being quiet until half 6 at which point she then came in bed for a cuddle. DW got a nights sleep and woke up looking happy and refreshed which pleases me no end as she was desperate for it, I've got a headache brewing but otherwise am happy enough!

Re: Dad's helping out - am genuinely shocked at the idea that they don't help out but as Saranga says it's about what works best for each couple. If it isn't working and someone's not pulling their weight though that's an issue that needs resolving. I couldn't take a back seat with DD because I like to be hands-on with the baby, my dad was 'old school' and didn't do much in this respect leaving it all to my mum while he went to work and I really don't want that for my DD, I want to be active for her sake and for the families too.

Plenty of virtual hugs and coffee for y'all up all night, hope it's possible for you guys to catch a bit of rest today

My fella does loads during the day, and all the housework. I don't know how women manage with partners who don't pull their weight.

Should clarify DH is out of the house 4.45am til 5-6pm Mon - Fri. So not a great deal off time to do stuff although i do think he could do a bit more.

Approaching tonight with trepidation. Hardly fed today - we've been out and its FAR to distracting to feed when we are out. Only just fallen asleep for the last nap of the day (yesterday was 3 - 6.30ish) so am expecting another hideous night as has so far rapped for a total of about an hour all day.

Good luck all!