Loosing the will to live now . . .

[LittleElephant123]

My little girl hit the 4 month sleep regression. We were up every 2/3 hours but then would go back to sleep. Now she is point blank refusing to take her bottle during the day and waking up every 1-2 hours wanting fed during the night. Me and my partner are now walking zombies and slowly loosing the will too live.

Is it too much to ask for her to take milk during the day as well as night. She constantly seems tired the now clearly because she's not getting a good sleep during the night not even a solid 2 hours she's constantly stirring. She has 2-4 30 minute naps a day and none later than 6pm.

I just have no idea how to help her. HV have been no help at all telling me that because she's putting on weight I've just to keep doing what I'm doing.

Please tell me I'm not the only one going through this! I'm so tired I can't even function anymore. Any help/advice would be great!

No advice, only sympathy. Mine wakes every 20-40 mins. I haven't slept more than an hour in months. He's screaming his head off next to me right now and I want to die.

Sorry, that's probably not very helpful

I've tried feeding her in a dark room with no distractions, a light room with nothing on, let her tell me when she wants fed, tried feeding at the same time every day, feeding at regular intervals. Tried feeding when she's sleepy, when shes fully awake. Nothing seems to work.

She is really nosey during the day always has been and is now fighting her naps but I manage to eventually get her off for 30 mins. During the night she usually takes her bottle fine tho up, feed, wind and back down in her cot.

The past couple of nights she's been playing around with the bottles but think the heat might have something to do with that.

zaurak that's awful I hope it gets better soon! Ĺack of sleep is torture it really is.

How old is she now? Just wondering if she is close to 6 months then some solids during the day may help. If she's still closer to 4 then clearly you can't do this.

She's 5 months on the 15th of June. I've been giving her a jar of food around 5pm so I know she's getting something in her tummy as well as continuing to offer milk at every opportunity. Also giving her sips of water as the weather's been really warm so didn't want her to dehydrate

Ds won't feed from me in the day either. My way round it is to take him to up bed, shut the curtains so it's dark and feed him there. Could you try that? Feeding somewhere really boring?
We also started solids at about that age - this is early and it's not recommended for everyone but he was dropping down the weight charts. It didn't help his sleep but it did make him eat in the day.

Sorry you're going through this - sleep deprivation is really really hard.

Yep zaurak we've tried that. Think I've tried everything I'm willing to give anything a go. That was my reasoning for giving her some food so I know she's getting something in her tummy and she really enjoys it. I didn't do it so she would sleep through the night because I know she is still little and milk is still her main source of nutrition so was expecting to still be up during the night just not every hour .

As much as this is a terrible thing to say I'm glad I'm not the only one going through this I was really starting to think we were the only ones with a cheeky monkey on our hands. The HV just don't seem interested at all in trying to help the thing is its starting to get me down because I'm so tired.

And just to at to it the baby that's 6 days older than my girl that stays in our block of flats asked how she was getting on during the night - only to be so happy that her baby had been sleeping through since 8 weeks . Grrrrrr

During the night she usually takes her bottle fine tho up, feed, wind and back down in her cot.

I think your baby is over tired, especially so during the daytime. Feeding is easier for her during the night because she's not so exhausted (having just woken up) and is hungry (having not fed much during the day).

Compared to during the daytime, if she's completely and utterly exhausted but is frustrated because she cant get to sleep - then she may be less keen to feed. Because she Just. Wants. To. Sleep.

I would work on daytime sleep. Really focused attention on getting her sleeping more frequently and for longer. Then feed when she wakes.

I would aim for no longer than 120 minutes awake initially, ideally just 90 minutes awake before her being back to sleep. And if it takes you a long time to get her to sleep that might mean wake, feed, 1 hour awake/playing then straight back to working on her getting back to sleep.

It doesn't matter if naps are short (30-45 minutes), but keep them frequent by limiting the time she is awake between one nap and the next.

I like the EASY routine. It ensures she has regular sleeps throughout the daytime and also advocates feeding upon waking, not upon going to sleep.

E - Eat
A - Awake/Activity
S - Sleep
Y - You time (while baby sleeps)

Repeated throughout the day.

I'd also recommend a dummy.

fate I'm going to try work in daytime naps tomorrow. I used to let her sleep in her bouncer but as we stay on a busy main road lately I've been putting her into a quieter room.

Since she's been wee she has always on cat napped 30 minutes 40 if I'm lucky. She gets z dummy and only usually has it when she's tired or upset. We use the same shawl at every sleep time as she likes to put her fingers through the holes to go to sleep.

This afternoon I tried to get her to nap took 50 minuted she eventually gave up in her car seat with me rocking it and slept for 30 minutes.

So tomorrow it's focus time on day time naps. Fingers crossed it helps!

Completely agree that you should try working on the daytime naps first. 30 minutes isn't very long at all.

My daughter was a nightmare sleeper and would literally nap for 20 minutes a time. I'd spend an hour getting her down just for her to wake up again straight away.

She should be going back to sleep no more than 90 minutes after her last wake up. Don't wait for sleep cues, an hour and a half max and then back to bed. I agree she sounds overtired, stick with it for a few days and you should see a difference.

Just to say, I've been working on my Dd's naps for about two weeks now... It has definitely made a difference, and things are easier, but it didn't make a difference as quickly as I thought it might and there have been what feel like two steps back and some nap/bedtimes are still a nightmare and night time sleep is still worse than previously. You should still definitely do it and I'm sure it will help but just don't want you to think it will be a miracle cure! (Unless it is in which case please pass on all your tips to me! ) Good luck, do let us know how you're getting on.

I've been trying hard to focus on daytime naps over the past few days. You know what it's like when it gets to the weekend got visiting etc to do.

Tried to stick to every 1hr30 minutes on Friday at 1 point I spent an hour trying to get her down she eventually gave in. I did the worst thing ever and thought right ill grab a nap too. I literally closed my eyes and she woke up. 27 minutes! That's what she napped for lol.

I didn't think it was going to be a quick fix didn't want to give myself false hope haha!
But I'm going to start again tomorrow. Today we tried giving her milk off a spoon - she just looked at us as if we were daft then I tried putting it into her dippy cup - that didn't work either lol.

My aunts a midwife and said she's playing us and I should try cut down on feeds during the night but I'm not so sure. I still feel she's too little.

Thanks for the support ladies!

When we put her down at night she talks to herself for a bit then gets grumpy has a bit of a moan. Unless she cries I don't go back into the room and if she does I go in give her her dummy and straight back out. I've recently put her elephant slumber buddy back into the room and think that's helping her a little bit to settle.

The whole lack of sleep is so hard. I keep telling myself 'it's just a phase and she will sleep one day . . . . ONE DAY' lol.

We suffered terribly with the 4 month sleep regression. I know how you are feeling!

My son was always a catnapper in the days, 25/35 minutes max.

At night he'd be up every 90 minutes. It got me so down as I just never got a break. My DH and I decided that we would try and wean him off some of the nighttime feeds and some v gentle sleep training.

Essentially as DS was a big lad and growing well we knew he didn't need milk every 1.5 hours at night. Maybe when he was a few weeks old, but not at 4/5 months. So my DH spent a week putting him to bed and rocking him back to sleep with him funny every time he woke, which took some perseverance! If he'd been more than 2hrs since a feed, I fed him. If it was less then DH was responsible for rocking him back to sleep. We hoped it would break the 'feed to sleep' cycle. It worked well for us. By 6 months he was down to 1/2 night wakings and feeds. I think the whole think helped him get used to fling back to sleep without milk.

life did you wee one take his milk during the day?

So last night she went down at 8pm fell asleep with me only going in once to give her, her dummy. That was her until 11pm started stirring gave her back her dummy got her into her comfy position again and she fell back asleep until 12.30 (I think) took 5oz then back to sleep and stirred around 2pm I did the same again then have up at 3.30 then awake at 5.30 gave her another bottle and she went back to sleep about 20 minutes after it (I had taken her in with me) then up at 8.10. Tried her with a bottle around 8.30 she took 1oz! Then made her a little breakfast using her milk and she just kept spitting it out. So 90 minutes after waking she is no having her first nap! And she went down rather easy.

I'm struggling to get her to take a breakfast in the morning (she won't take more than 1oz of milk) but she'll happily take a lunch and a dinner.

Yes he did, so I felt confident he could go without for up to 2hrs at night.

It sounds tough, but not that unusual (if that helps?!?). My DS would have gone to sleep 90 mins after waking too at that age.

Not sure if any PP mentioned the easy cycle? I followed that and found it was a real help as we focuses on awake times and it was adaptable to whenever he woke up. Basically a short nap every 90 minutes (so 4 a day I think) and awake time gradually extended.

Even when he was much older DS would still have been able to go to sleep 90 minutes after he woke up!