How the hell do I survive this? Need a hand hold.

[StrangeDream]

4 month DS is waking almost every hour after midnight.

It is killing me. Sat here in tears of exhaustion.

He is EBF and won't take a bottle. He goes down around 8pm then wakes at 12am, 2am, 3am, 4am...every hour until 7am.

This is not his usual pattern - he previously did 8pm until 6am with one or two feeds.

When he wakes at night I can only get him back to sleep by feeding him / rocking him.

He sleeps in his cotbed in our room. He's not too hot or cold. Our room is dark. He has a white noise thing that we play when he goes down to sleep.

I'm praying this is the four month regression or a growth spurt. I'm battling PND so finding things tough enough as it is without chronic sleep deprivation on top. I can't catch up on sleep during the day as I have toddler DD to look after.

I'm sure he's getting to the lighter part of his sleep cycle, waking and not being able to settle himself again. But this doesn't help solve the problem

How do I get through this? Will it ever end? Is there anything I can do? Any advice or hand holding would be gratefully received.

Sorry to clarify, he wasn't crying when I left him, just shuffling around and chatting to himself.

Hmm CC could be too soon for 4 month old - my DS had sleep regression at that age which was tough but knowing it was probably the regression kind of helped me accept it.
Zaurak
First night DS cried for 20mins - DH kept popping in. He then slept until I fed at 2am and then woke again at 4.30 but was a whinge rather than a cry, that was for 1/2hr then seemed to fall asleep instantly.
2nd night - first wake up was a lot later and whinged (not crying as such) for 1/2hr before falling asleep. Fed at 3am then slept until morning get up.
3rd night - when he woke up at time it wasn't his feed it was for 6mins before falling asleep.

My DS has often had a moan before falling asleep though, often sounding like he's having a debate with his teddies!
How I've reacted to his cries is based on how well I know my own son's cries and normal 'falling to sleep' sounds and patterns - just because he's been making some sort of noise we haven't gone in every other minute. Babies aren't put down in their bed and instantly quiet so I see it futile to try and force this - my DS had a week of HUMMING himself to sleep (been said that the rhythimic vibrations are soothing...).

Those Sleep consultants come up with a plan with you and talk to you on the phone. First step is to do a sleep diary for a few days.

Sounds like you are going in the right direction with it op and you sound more positive today. I think letting them self settle is important . It all went wrong for me when I started to pick my dd up and bf every time she stirred a bit. I'm telling myself I won't be doing this second time (due soon). We will see what reality holds. (She ended up waking every hour after previously sleeping through).

It's such a hard habit to break, cotton. Thing is I can't tell if he's just fussing for a feed or about to fall back to sleep. I'm quite happy to leave him if I reckon he's going to drift off but there's always the risk that he's hungry and will just wake himself further.

Hoping for another 'good' night tonight.

StrangeDream - what's the longest your DS has gone between feeds? For eg if it's 4hrs then you know if he wakes before 4hrs then he's not hungry (he MAY want a feed but he doesn't NEED one) so you can rest assured that you're not going to starve him.
Do you have a video monitor? If so note his cues when he's settling himself back down, my DS will rock head side to side and eyes will be closed even if making a bit of noise so if i see this I leave him alone.

Hi, I just wanted to say, I know it's really hard. My both kids were (one still is) atrocious sleepers. To me, it just slowly got better without any extra effort on my part. First year is the hardest. I co sleep, still bf at night and it's easier than getting up. Would it be something you'd consider? It's tough, but it does get better. They all learn how to sleep eventually. Hang in there!

No useful advice I'm afraid, just I'm in a similar position with my 1 yr old! I have an older DC too, it's bloody hard whatever the situation but I've found it so much harder second time around. My first DC didn't sleep through until 18mo, I'm praying the second one gets there sooner! This time my tolerance and patience levels are much lower. Baby usually ends up in bed with me breastfeeding most of the night, or if DH is around then he has him sometimes. I don't feel physically tired at all but mentally I am exhausted and just want some space! I would be a better mum in the day if I had a proper break at night.

I will reply properly tomorrow as am in bed now, but I had exactly the same with my now 5 month old, and I contacted a sleep consultant and my dd now sleeps all night from 7pm, with an occasional night feed at 4am. She also helped me with day time cot naps. It took 3 days to crack, no leaving baby to cry, and athe this point my dd was feeding 28 times per night I promise I will reply properly tomorrow

Wine and popcorn - please come back and share your magic solution!

At 4 months this is what I would do:

1. don't feed at every waking. He doesn't actually need it at 4 months. I would feed at 8pm, feed a dreamfeed just before you go to bed at 10-11pm, then no feeds for 4 hrs at least overnight. So if you feed at 11pm, don't feed again until after 3am. If he wakes at midnight/ 1am/2am you and Dh take turns to settle him with just rocking/ soothing/ water if needed. At 4 months with unlimited feeds in the daytime he will be fine limiting overnight.

2. don't feed before sleep as part of routine. Last feed at 8pm do as a daytime feed in living room with lights on, then bedtime routine of nappy/ story/ lullaby in dimmed light as then easier in the night to resettle without feed if he doesn't associate sleep with milk.

3. the wakings inbetween feeds Dh has to help with. He will learn to settle him without feeding just as you will. That was you both get a little more time in bed.

4. try and settle for naps in day same way. Not feeding to sleep, with similar hushing/ stroking face/ lullaby etc so it becomes familiar.

Hi I'm back!

My 5 month old was a terrible sleeper from birth, and I had got into the habit of feeding her to sleep at night, during her worse night she had 28 night feeds . My relationship was suffering, I was too tired to look after my other children properly, and my mental health was suffering.

I contacted a sleep specialist called The Cheshire Baby Whisperer, and paid £30 for a copy of her book, and 2 months unlimited phone and email communication with her. She also does home visits but I didn't end up needing this. Her technique is based on the 5 senses, and doesn't involve any crying it out etc. She advises to make the cot a fun place, and to stimulate all senses with play time in the cot before going to sleep. It went against everything that I thought you were meant to do, such as low stimulus before sleep, but I was desperate and willing to try anything!

First of all she helps you to sort out the daytime naps ( my DD would only sleep in the car at that point), and she stayed on the phone with me the whole time until my DD was asleep, advising me on what to do. I then used the same techniques to put her down at night, and each time she woke I again followed her advice. Each night got easier and after 3 nights she was basically sleeping through with only 1 night feed at around 4am!!!

Over the first couple of weeks I was emailing her constantly for support and additional advice, which she always promptly replied to. I haven't needed to contact her after the first couple of weeks.

Her sleeps gone to pot a bit in the last week as shes unwell, so I am giving her extra feeds and having some unsettled nights. The difference is that I know that I can get her back into it when she's better, so I'm not stressing about it.

She also has a Facebook page, do you can get advice there too.

I honestly can't reccomend her enough. I'm an older mum of 3, so I felt daft that I was at my wit's end, but sometimes it takes an independent person to give you the confidence to try something different to what you think will work!

Good luck OP .

Thanks wine, that's really interesting. I'm going to look up her FB page.

hello StrangeDream I really feel your pain with wishing you had never breastfed. I have started to hate BF as I simply cannot get my LG to accept any bottle or cup. It is incredibly isolating, I can't leave her for more than a few hours but I am hoping it will get better with time. I was told not to combination feed when LG was little as it would lead to nipple confusion, instead it has lead to complete refusal. I am talking about expressed milk at the moment but this may change soon...

My LG is 6 months old now but we had a horrible few weeks with the four month sleep regression. It does get better. Can I suggest what smn else has done which is try gradually to stop feeding to sleep? I started doing this by from the proper wake up time (e.g. 7) starting with a feed and not feeding before a nap. My LG woke (and still sometimes wakes) at 5.58, 6.20...... I completely ignore her until 7.00 unless she is crying. I also leave the room often as it is too noisy for me to sleep.

Stopping feeding to sleep was a very loose EASY routine (Eat, Activity, Sleep, 'you'). It eventually worked with baby steps... we have not needed yet to do controlled crying but may have to come to this at some point. Whether you do CC is down to you and how mature you think your baby is, is it usually from 6 mths? Ignore anyone on here who doesn't know your baby, or how tired you are and tells you point blank not to do it.

Can I be really blunt? It is simply not enough for your OH to be crap at settling your LG. I have only got through these last 6 months with my OH taking a large share of night time wakings (I would say about half) and not feeding on demand any more, so the wakings between feeds are dealt with by my OH. It has taken time but this enables me to tryto get four hours sleep between feeds i.e. 11-3am then OH sleeps 3-7.... we both sleep more around LG wakings and there is a lot of swapping rooms to achieve this... sorry for the long post but I wanted to try to help.

Thanks Wine! I have to say I'm a bit dubious about anything claiming to be a miracle solution, but I hear what you're saying about trying something different. It's interesting about the playtime in the cot, it does go against your instinct to want the cot associated only with sleep not playtime. What do you do though, when they start crying? My dd will not just play in her cot, she will cry. To be honest she's not really capable of 'playing' at all yet, she just chews stuff.

At this age and if you are EBF with bottle refusal I would recommend safe co-sleeping (or are you doing that already?). That's how I survived it, and it worked well - I felt so much better for getting back to sleep fast after wake-ups, it made a big difference. You can then look at sleep training, if you want to, when your child is a bit older. To be honest sleep training is always a bit tough, and won't be made any tougher by you having co-slept, so don't think you're 'making a rod for your own back' - although some people like to tell you that. La Leche League has a great book on this approach and how to do it safely, based on up to date research. It's called Sweet Sleep, and personally I'd really recommend it: www.amazon.co.uk/Sweet-Sleep-Nighttime-Strategies-Breastfeeding/dp/178066155X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464172401&sr=8-1&keywords=sweet+sleep Hugs to you, I've been there and it's really hard xxx

I have tried cosleeping, but sadly it didn't help at all for me. My Dd still wakes just as often, is just as hard to settle ( sometimes she feeds back to sleep, but more often she will have a quick suck and then carry on crying and thrashing around ) and I sleep even worse because I'm so uncomfortable with pain in my hips. It's a real bummer.

I feel really stuck, because I don't feel comfortable with any 'sleep training ' but all the advice if you don't want to do that is to Co sleep. What to do though if that doesn't work for you? Just keep putting up with the sleep deprivation I guess.