5mo worse and worse sleep

[boatdancer]

I had a wonderful 6 week old who slept through 10-7, and did so until 3 months. Since then, it's all gone to shit and I'm sitting here on my fourth wake up at my wits end! Something is obviously not working but fucked if I know what it is!
Having that teaser of good sleep has made it so much worse. I know 4/5 months is typical sleep regression age but this seems excessive. Even co/sleeping with me doesn't work anymore if I get desperate. What do I do?! I'm exhausted.

[Introvertedbuthappy]

My sympathies. My 9 month old slept through from 12-19 weeks. Then up every 2 hours. He has only just (in the last week) down to 2 get ups and last night slept from 7-4 through but is so well rested he has refused to go back to sleep so is downstairs with me! Have to leave for work in an hour so he'll sleep in the car on the way to nursery.

[Whattodowithaminute]

from me, this bit is really hard! I'm up all night with a 5mo at the moment too. He is depending on sucking to get to sleep, cat napping through the day and up every 1-2hours through the night. Cosleeping makes it a bit better in that he goes down after a feed much more quickly whereas in the cot can take 3-4 attempts. I've realised I'm just crap at settling him to sleep so end up feeding and hence have created a hideous non sleeper. This happened with my older children too
Mum is coming to stay next week so I should be able to dedicate more time to getting him proper daytime sleeps then can sort the nights. We resorted to cc with the others and they went 7-7 within 3 days.

[boatdancer]

The every two hours thing has failed today! It's the sixth time I've been up with her and each time she's harder to resettle. It honestly feels like there is no solution! I feel so frazzled I can hardly keep my eyes open. :-(

[boatdancer]

We did have a better night, I put her in with me in the end, but she did sleep! So while it wasn't the best for me, it was far far better than screaming endlessly. She got up for the day pretty early though. It still feels so wrong to be up and downstairs before my toddler!

[Highlove]

A good night here. I actually only fed her twice between 7pm and 6am which is fab. She did have an awake period between 9.30 and 10.30 but I left DH to it - I find if I end up feeding her at that point, she'll be up every hour or more thereafter but if he can settle her some other way, she'll only need a couple of feeds overnight. I'd be delighted if we could consistently get to just 2am and 5am feeds! Up at 6.15 but fed lying down till 7 so I can't really complain about that!

Hope you both had slightly better nights too.

[3andamdone]

It is hard to get it all in especially when everyone is starting off thoroughly knackered! Maybe some naps for you at the weekend if DH can sortbkids for you? I think they hav their own temperament and ideas too sometimes, our eldest was a far easier baby but now a total pain in the butt much as I love her to death, middle child nighmar baby, delightful now. It will not last forever,

I hate to keep finding problems but am struggling with the feeding too. Yesterday she BF on and off 6-8am as in bed with me, then had a very quick feed at eleven and then no boob till four! She's on solids so gets some sustenance that way. Last night she had breast and bottle at bedtime, was up at MD, two, four and quarter to six back in to bed with me to feed off and on till seven. And repeat!!! Wondering if my supplybis naff and she'd be better on the bottle but she doesn't take it well either!!! Going to weigh her this morning

It's a good job she is so gorgeous, high and boat how did it go??

[boatdancer]

Up until recently she was with me 24/7, so bedtime was like 10:30 unless I wanted to sit in the dark for hours on end! I'm still not far from 9 onwards, I'm just slowly creeping the routine forwards.
This is her first waking by the way, so a solid 5hrs, pretty impressive! I'm expecting it to spiral like normal though.

[TiffanyAtBreakfast]

Not much advice I'm afraid but plenty of sympathy. My little one went through this at 5 months and is still a nightmare.
Only thing I did spot though - do you not start the bedtime routine til 9pm?! Seems v late, maybe she's overtired.

[FATEdestiny]

I sound like a know it all twat. I'm sorry. I really don't mean to come across like that 😕

[FATEdestiny]

how do you make it happen when you've got older kids who need you/need to be places/etc?

Not sure if that is rhetorical or not?

At this age the routine needs to be baby led, but it's very easy to gain predictability and structure to your day.

I work backwards from immovable timings. So 8.30-8.50 school run. So I'd time nap for 7.30 (if up early) or make sure any nap after 8am was in the car seat and expect baby to wake up some time during the school run, feed as soon as we are home. 3.15pm for next school run, work backwards from that.

Ive got four children, a total of 15 out of school clubs/sports per week, daily school runs and a dog to walk. It's entirely doable. Indeed having a routine when you have a large family makes like infinately easier.

My big baby needs me too!

If you have a baby sleeping well, everyone gets more of you. A grumpy baby is a tired baby who needs to be asleep and a happy baby should be happy to have a roll around on the floor while I get on with stuff.

So I get stuff done and spend time with the other children either when baby is awake/happy playing or asleep. Which accounts for most of the time. Baby gets my sole attention for feeds and getting to sleep, but that's not huge amounts of time, compared to asleep or happy playing independantly.

[Highlove]

I get the two-hourly thing FATE, makes perfect sense. But in practice, how do you make it happen when you've got older kids who need you/need to be places/etc? I do feel I could probably crack this (the daytime bit, at least) but for the fact I can't devote my whole day to the baby. My big baby needs me too!

[FATEdestiny]

It needs regular daytime naps, as well as feeds. I'd try to fit a nap in between each of the 2 hourly feeds.

EASY routine helps

E- eat - start with a full feed upon waking
A- awake time - limit to 60-75 minutes from waking
S - sleep - expect 30-45 minutes (making the whole cycle around 2 hours)
Y - you time

[Highlove]

I've been doing the two hourly feeding thing (she's BF) but no joy. I'm sure she's not waking from hunger.

Bedtime actually went well - she was v sleepy but stirred when I put her down then went straight off. By the time I got downstairs and checked the video monitor, she was awake but happy then went off brilliantly about five minutes later with no tears at all and no further intervention from me. A miracle. But so far, otherwise no change - DH is up there trying to settle her right now. I don't expect her to sleep through, but I think a couple of overnight feeds ought to be sufficient. That's not unreasonable is it?? Surely? I'm not feeding till 11 and that's that!

[boatdancer]

Good luck highlove. I've been feeding her every two hours today, a lot of the time she protested it and only had a little, but I'm about to do the bedtime routine (literally grobag on, song and bottle shoved in mouth) so fingers crossed!
I wish everyone a good nights sleep, with minimal waking and crying.

[3andamdone]

Higlove, good luck, really hope it helps, let us know what you did and how you get on xx

[Highlove]

Sleep when the baby sleeps. Ah ha ha ha ha ha. Sob.

DD1 was over one before she slept through and only now is starting to do so reliably. But I think we did some CC at about 10 months after months of getting nowhere with gentler methods, and it was v quick and got her down to one or two quick feeds overnight. And she became a champion cot napper, too. Three hours after lunch some days. Ah, good times.

So, gradual withdrawal at bedtime starts here tonight. It can't make things worse, can it...!?

[boatdancer]

Yeah, it just doesn't seem worth persevering with the dummy when it makes her cry and she gets further distressed. It doesn't seem like a solution for us. To be honest, she had never really liked to suck, we had an endless battle with breastfeeding and then with the bottle, it's never really relaxed her. She prefers to chew her blanket or fingers. I'm hopefully when it comes time for food and she doesn't need to drink so much milk for sustenance, things might resolve themselves.
But when it's 4am and she's been crying inconsolably for hours, even s few weeks feels like an eternity!
I think I blacked out doing this the first time too! I can't remember anything about how we got to a reliable full nights sleep.

[3andamdone]

Hi fox boat and high,

Just a sympathetic post, our sleep is hideous too with dd 3. She won't take dummy either , last night tried again and she cried even more so much as would love it to work don't see the point of making her cry to take it. In the day she is refusing boob a lot too so can't feed her to sleep- she goes of in buggy or car butbfor 30-40 mins only. Last night she woke every 20 mins till midnight, slept 2 hrs and then woke every hour. I am on my knees.
Dd 2 was similar and now a great sleeper, we did some cc with her but can't remember how long it took or the ins and outs, must have blacked it all out.
Currently thinking may just accept and go with the flow and see where we are in a couple of weeks time but it is really hard especially with toddlers about so hats off to you all.

[Timetogrowup2016]

You don't need to wean from a dummy at 5 months ...
More like 2-3 years old.
A dummy for sleeps will not do any baby any harm at all .
Fwiw it took my dd 3-4 months to take a dummy and I tried every day .
At 11 months .
In cot . Dummy . Sleeps 12-13 hours through 5 nights out of 7.

[foxessocks]

No advice really sorry but I'm in same situation. My ds is nearly 5 months and was sleeping really well until recently. Last couple of weeks have been so bad, waking frequently and awake for one or two hours in a row sometimes , usually between 1 and 3 am! So you have my sympathy. I'm telling myself this is a phase. Babies are a mystery. I'm pretty sure my dd did the same thing every now and again and she's a wonderful sleeper now and after a year old we never had any problems.

[boatdancer]

She's five months old though, I feel like if she was going to take to the dummy, she would have by now. I would also be close to the point of weaning her away from it at this point.

[FATEdestiny]

She has always refused a dummy, I tried loads of different kinds. Pain in the but! With my first a dummy worked a treat at this point to settle in the night without a bottle.

Sucking to sleep is narualky soothing. It's the reason breastfeeding to sleep works and the dummy is the independant alternate.

I would preserver with the dummy. When I say preserver I mean being utterly single minded and relentless about it.

My older children all took to a dummy as soon as offered one. But my youngest refused. It took me 7 weeks of relentless, every sleep time attempts. Eventually she finally 'got' that she needed to suck rather than letting it limply sit in her mouth (or spitting it out).

I would have kept going for as long as it took, because of the huge value in a dummy for independant settling.

If you've not got a baby who is sucking to sleep, you will probably be spending many months rocking and/or cosleeping to help baby instead.

[boatdancer]

Yep, I have a somewhat neglected three year old! Often gets the iPad waved in his face so I can focus on the baby, I feel terrible but he's happy.
Those kinds of gadgets and tricks never work for us over night. She typically will fall asleep fine but then wake up after an hour, resettle for a few hours then wake up hourly for the rest of the night. At this point nothing will sooth her. Im going round the bend! It's so difficult to be a civil person when you've been up all night and with the second baby you've got zero hope of the old 'sleep when the baby sleeps' nonsense.

[usernoidea]

Do you use white noise? It's been a life changer for us x

[Highlove]

I'm so tired I could cry. I've just totally lost my shit with DH. Gah.