Advice needed...4 month sleep regression

[Willow4987]

Hi! My 16wk DS has started the 4 month sleep regression. In itself it’s not been too bad but he’s started waking several times a night and the only way to get him to sleep is if he comes onto my chest - he never even did this when he was a newborn, only in the last 2 weeks

In addition, daytime naps are always on me

So all in all he’s now spending most of his sleep time on me and I’m really keen for this not to become a habit.

I’m pretty willing to just get through the regression but really conscious of not creating bad habits longer term. At the moment we can only get about 30-60 mins of sleep on me at night and practically none in the day

So when we’re ready how do I stop this? How do I encourage sleep off me, at night and during the day?

At some point in the not too distant future he will go into his own room around 6 months but this won’t be practical until his sleep improves

I know people will say to just get through it by any means necessary but I really need some practical advice from people who’ve been there on how I can actually achieve daytime naps in his crib and not needing me to sleep on at night?

I feel your pain, my LO was an great sleeper until she hit 4 months then we had 2 months of terrible sleep, she has just gone into her own room at 7 months and things are improving. The only practical advice I have is let him fall asleep on you then place him in his cot, so at least he gets used to it. Do you have a bedtime routine? Bath, story, white noise etc? I also give my daughter a muslin that smells like me to snuggle when she sleeps.

My LO taught herself to self settle at around 6 months, she just naturally did it so I think it’s an age thing, we co-slept a lot until then and just did what we had to do to get through it. Do you have a next to me or a proper cot?

We had an awful sleeper with DS2 and looking back it all went horribly wrong around 4 months. DD is now 5 months and I think we got through it. I did lots of reading (because I was terrified and one thing I read said that if you had good habits before the regression hit then it shouldn’t last as long. DS2 has bad sleeping habits, no routine and no self settling, mainly because he kind of just fell asleep so I didn’t worry. DD had great habits, and we did get through in about 8 days. She’s never gone back to her 7-8 hour night stretches (sadly!) but she is sleeping ok for a 5 month old.

Thanks both!

We have a bedtime routine which seems to be working but he still spends this first sleep on me for a couple of hours otherwise he wakes up. I think he might treat it as more of a nap rather than the beginning of the night 🤦🏻‍♀️

We’ve got a next to be crib which has been a lifesaver so think I will just have to persevere with rocking to sleep and have a few bad nights until hopefully the amount of waking reduces

I do think he wants to sleep on his front after one of the many wake ups as I put him on it last night to test what would happen and he fell straight to sleep. Obviously this isn’t safe so he won’t be sleeping like this until he naturally puts himself into it (and can get himself out of it!) but at least good to know that some of it might just be that his back isn’t the preferred position for him