First time mum to a four month old baby, exclusively breastfed. Night time sleep was gradually getting better week by week until 11 weeks when he did a five hour stretch at the beginning of the night.
It was like a switch was flicked- he went from two wake ups/feeds on a good night to anything from four to eight. Longest stretch of the night is generally two to three hours and wake ups are anything from one to two hours for the rest of the night. Night feeds are generally ten to twenty minutes long.
Naps are also a disaster. He wakes up between 25 and 45 minutes after falling asleep. Will generally fall asleep without too much fuss in the pram but naps in the crib involve much more settling.
After six weeks of very broken sleep (and four months in total of poor sleep) I am exhausted and I feel like an utter failure as a parent. I am crying a lot out of both exhaustion and feelings of worthlessness because I feel I am failing so badly. I am surrounded by mum friends whose babies are sleeping much better than my son. I
I am feeling especially awful because my in laws are staying at the moment and of course all of their other grandchildren are/were champion sleepers as babies.
I have read so many sleep books and have tried to extend daytime naps with the hope of improving night time sleep- I can’t get him to settle back to sleep after the 45 minute wake up however hard I try but he’s clearly still tired when he wakes up.
I’ve had a bedtime routine since he was six weeks old and put him down to sleep when he’s sleepy but still awake...but it makes no difference. Last night he still woke up after two hours and four or five times after that.
I’m finding it increasingly hard to settle him down to sleep for naps or at night which is really upsetting too.
I am so, so sad. I feel like I’m failing my son.