Do you just wait the 4mo sleep regression out?

[User24689]

Or are you supposed to help them self settle in some way? I don't remember this from my first baby because she was a terrible sleeper from birth anyway.

DS is 4 months this week and has always been a really good sleeper. He has never had awake time in the night, has just fed back to sleep after night feeds and since about 6 weeks has just had the one feed in a 6.30ish-5.30ish sleep.

This last week I've struggled to get him down, usually have 3 or 4 'false starts' to the night and he cannot be left to self settle, if he isn't in deep sleep and floppy when I put him down he is wide awake and shouting when he touches the mattress. He also properly wakes up for the night feed and is then awake and wanting to play for about 1.5-2 hours. He has also been starting the day at 4.30. last night he fed every hour of the night.

It's hard because I also have a 2 year old who doesn't reliably nap so can't ever catch up in the day. I'm so so tired this morning!

Hes a big baby, 85th percentile for height and weight and my mum has said start him on solids but it seems way too early!

www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/self-soothing-is-bollocks-says-baby-20171015137482

My favourite article.

In all seriousness you wait it out, they need you the MOST when going through regressions and spurts x

Haha! Love that. Thanks. I'm sure we can get through it, its just there is so much conflicting info about baby sleep on the internet and I was worried if I didn't 'do something' my baby would sleep like this forever (these are the ramblings of a sleep deprived person obviously!)

My baby is 1 next week and I'm still waiting it out

She slept brilliantly until the 4 month sleep regression

It's not actually a regression but a total change to the way they sleep so don't wait!

Ugh Let's I hope things improve for you soon!

April, I did read that, but don't they learn to sleep a different way? Isn't it that they 'come round' after a sleep cycle whereas they remained in deep sleep before (or something similar to this)? If it permanently stays like this then kids would never sleep through so presumably most do get over this hurdle, I'm just not sure whether they need to be helped over it or whether they do it themselves.

I think you wait it out initially. If things don’t settle down you can try some sleep training (I was thinking the gentler gradual kind) when he’s 7 months or so to help things along.
I agree that many babies clear this hurdle on their own. Dd1 has a horrific regression and we had to sleep train in the end as I was broken, Ds just sort got the hang of it himself reasonably quickly.
Dd2 is just coming up to 4 months. Eek.
If it’s awful I will definitely be doing some cosleeping to see if it helps get me more sleep. Ds is 2 and, like you say, it’s full-on during the day.

We're in the same boat here OP except I thought the regression wouldn't affect us as he is an awful sleeper anyway, turns out it can get worse!

I remember the same thing with ds1, months of torture (sorry!) but then it did get better, he is 20 months now and sleeps beautifully so they do come out of it and we didn't do any 'sleep training'.

Good luck, hope you get some rest soon and your eldest gives you a nap break in the daytime!x