God help me if this is his sleep BEFORE the four month regression

[hiccupgate]

Another sleep thread from another sleep deprived woman starting to lose her shit, looking for solidarity or advice.

At about seven - nine weeks DS was sleeping five-hour chunks, on a couple of occasions six or seven, waking once for a feed and then going back down until 5-6am, feeding, then dozing off again. So let's say three wake ups a night.

He's now 11 weeks and over the past fortnight, his sleep has deteriorated rapidly, to the point where I can't even reliably get 2-3 hours out of him for the first part of the night. He wakes anywhere between 30 mins - 2 hours after going down and by about 4am, simply cannot be resettled in his basket. This pattern persists whether or not he is fed or cuddled back to sleep, or settled in the basket. He will either snap back awake or simply wake up a very short time later. DP takes him in the early morning at weekends so that I can have an hour or so before he next needs feeding. During the week I end up feeding him on my side so he drifts back off in the bed and we co-sleep. Although this is not something I'm keen to do long-term.

Bedtime routine generally starts around half hour to forty minutes before he would be due to go down, which is about two hours after his last nap. Bath, boobs and bed. He can be helped to settle in his basket but the idea of him self settling is hilarious. It can take anywhere between 1-2 hours to settle him for the "night".

He won't nap during the day unless he is in the pram or carrier, but he gets about 3.5-4 hours worth of naps per day. I walk. A lot.

He's a windy, refluxy baby on ranitidine, sometimes he's woken by wind or sick up, other times not. Sometimes it's obvious he is comfort sucking, other times he's definitely hungry. I've tried offering extra day feeds to no avail.

I don't know whether to try and get more sleep from him in the day or less. I don't know if he's on a growth spurt or teething. He's started sucking his hands an awful lot coinciding with the sleep deterioration but assumed he'd just "found his hands".

I feel like I'm missing something obvious and that I should be doing better at this. The cumulative broken sleep is really starting to get me down. I dread most parts of the day and often cry when DP goes to work. I've got reasonably good support around me, I'm just exhausted and frustrated. I'm assuming that the four month sleep regression will mean he stops sleeping entirely. 😴😭

Shit that was long, sorry. 😳

Didn’t want to read and run OP. My commiserations, the cumulative sleep drought is utter torture

A few random things to try if you haven’t already - co sleeping, propping the basket up to elevate the head end, white noise, neurofen (in case it is teeth, they’ll sleep better if so)...

...but sometimes the little buggers just don’t want to sleep. Can your dh do all feeds until, say, 230am so you can at least have a decent reliable stretch of sleep in the early evening?

to you

Thanks stealthbanana. DP has done some feeds and although DS will take the bottle it usually involves hysterical crying for an hour that I'd be able to hear a mile off, so I just lie there awake anyway with my anxiety levels going through the roof 😢. Will try tilting the basket to see if that makes a difference and will be starting on the white noise I think. X

Cosleeping helped ups and white noise (11 hours of fans on YouTube) was a freakin miracle -stopped her screaming and lulls her to sleep really well.

Aw I had a bottle refuser with my first so I feel your pain

White noise may really help. You can also get toys that vibrate gently - they may like that if motion sends them off during the day? It WILL pass, and don’t fear the 4 month regression- it may not come at all, what you’re in may be it now, and it will be over soon either way.

Please know you aren’t doing anything wrong! Sounds like baby is coming out of the 4th trimester and just more aware of world/surroundings and not in the newborn zonked phase. Needing sling/pram to nap
is completely normal too.
You mention comfort sucking - there’s nothing wrong with this. BF provides comfort as well as nutrition, particularly if baby has reflux.
We tie ourselves in knots figuring out what’s ‘wrong’ and I think we like to try things because we’d like to have some element of control over these little creatures. By the time we figure out one thing something else will change and make things tricky!
My first was an awful sleeper and we had to co sleep because I was just broken. In hindsight it was just going to take him longer to get there with sleep - he was a dream to wean onto solids and potty train. Other parents had great sleepers who hated food and potty training was awful. They come with their own personalities from day one and I think in the west the perception/expectation of baby sleep and reality are far apart.
Do what you can to get as much sleep as you can and just know you’re doing a great job.

Definitely try white noise on YouTube. If it works maybe consider buying Ollie the Owl or similar. It helped my DS at that age. He was listening to heart beat noise and white noise.

If DH can take your LO out during the day when he naps in the sling or pushchair get a nap. Get naps whenever you can at all. Everything else around the house can wait. That's what got me through the most difficult times.

I had very similar with my DS who is now 5.5 months. I just resorted to co sleeping to get any sleep at all.

Also might be worth trying baby groups. My LO gets so tired after an hr at the baby group he then naps well afterwards. You could go to baby group, feed him at the end, hopefully he'll then fall asleep in pushchair, get home leave him in pushchair and nap somewhere close by.

You're not doing anything wrong. I remember when my DS was about 2 months old and some nights was waking frequently I tiredly said to my DH "maybe it's because I had a drink of coke today. It's got caffeine in it. I must stop. Or maybe it's something else I've had to eat" and he just really loudly said "no it's not. And stop saying this!!! It's because he's a baby and nothing to do with you!!!!" And I shut up. And in hindsight he was bloody right! And I was sleep deprived and wasn't thinking clearly at all. Now I drink coffee, eat whatever I want and my DS sleeps well no matter what I have

Crabbit and MummEE2 thank-you both. DP keeps telling me "it's because he's a baby!" while I sit frantically trying to figure out how I can "fix" DS's sleep. I think I've just read too much about baby sleep, both online and elsewhere that makes me feel it's more in my control than actually it is. Maybe.

Child has an outstanding ability to fall asleep through any baby class I pay for. Maybe there's a market for running bloody baby sensory and rhyme time at 3am. Five little speckled frogs on surround sound with maracas and some glove puppets ought to do it.

What we're your experiences of the four month regression?

*were

DS1 4 month regression woke every 45 minutes unless attached to me. This lasted a long time, he couldn’t sleep without boob.
DS2 woke every couple hours, now at 5.5 months is back to doing longer stretches but still needs 2/3 feeds a night. Now encouraging him to fall asleep from properly awake rather than milk drunk. Making slow progress but it does seem to be improving his overall sleep. Trying also to not co-sleep but but 2nd wake up usually just bring him in as I’m too tired to not to.

My DD slept dreadfully at 11-12 weeks too. To reassure you we really didn't notice any 4 month sleep regression, I think you have to have made some progress in order to regress in the first place!

I didn't really notice the 4 month sleep regression either. I just saw that some days my DS woke up more than others but it's been on and off. When he was 4 months I think in that period he had 1 random week of waking up more but that's it. He's now 5.5 months and for the past 4 days been waking up more at night again. It seems random with my LO but as it's happened before and corrected itself I'm not worried and not trying to fix things.

Lol, yes Bombalarino you can't regress from nothing. I've just read so many horror stories. It's fear inducing and I'm naturally the sort of person who wants control! It's good to hear that it might not be that bad. We started on the white noise last night. It might be a fluke but he settled straight away yesterday evening by 7. Time will tell.

This morning I was so tired that I managed to walk the pram into a stack of baskets in the grocers, waved the cashier a cheery goodbye in Boots while leaving my stuff on the till, lost my phone down the beach and had to walk half a mile back to comb the shingle for it, then poured stone cold water on my coffee. Baby is alive though.

Oh the cumulative sleep deprivation is just rubbish isn't it. I often think how different my life would be if I had one of these magic sleeping babies! We're at 6 months now, and generally sleeping is up and down. In all honesty I think actually 10/11 weeks was the worst patch for me, so far at any rate! But there definitely wasn't any notable 4 month regression.

I think having a nap time schedule helped me, probably because it made me feel a bit more in control, gave our day some structure and gave me something to aim for. Like you, I read no end of conflicting advice online but increasingly I'm thinking it'll just take time.

Just to update on this, DS is now 13 weeks and spent a week sleeping through the night, but is now is back to waking every hour, won't be put down in his basket at all, screams bloody murder from overtiredness and not even side feeding and cosleeping are cutting it. No idea what the problem is!! There's genuinely no rhyme or reason. We're using white noise as well and persevering with the normal routine. Give me strength!! 😭