Five month old suddenly sleeping worse

[NoMustardPlease]

Hi all.

DD is 5.5 months old and usually a pretty good sleeper (sleeps 8pm - 5/6am, wakes up for a feed, then back down until 8/9am).

However, for the past few nights she has been waking up at 4/5am and then either flatly refusing to go back to sleep, or taking a long time to fall back to sleep and then waking up again 30/45 minutes later. This will carry on until I give up and get up for the day at 7ish. Sometimes she also wakes up within a few minutes of first being put down for the night and needs to be rocked back to sleep.

She still sleeps for a good 6/7 hour stretch at the beginning of the night (aside from the aforementioned wake up at the beginning), so I know it could be WAY worse, but having to start the day at 4/5am or being woken up every 30/45 minutes from 4/5am is starting to get a little tiring!

She sleeps during the day, but rarely for longer than 30 minutes. She doesn’t usually cry during these wake ups (in fact she seems quite happy!) so I don’t think it’s teething/pain. She’s also good as gold during the day (very smiley, rarely cries) so I don’t think the less sleep is affecting her.

She’s in the middle of leap 5 at the moment and has just learnt to crawl. Could this explain it?

Thanks

I dunno, but sounds like things are going great!! My 5.5 month old now wakes hourly and will only settle on the boob. This then means her day feeds are crap and the cycle repeats! I'm so sleep deprived after three weeks of this I could give up (but obviously can't!).

I'm sure someone will be along to tell us that it's a phase.

Oh and my dd will hardly nap... I spend most of the day trying to rock/sing/feed her into a nap and I'm lucky if I get two that last 45 mins each.

How the hell are you managing to get long stretches of sleep at all???!

By the way, I'm genuinely asking you for help, not saying I've got it worse, poor me... how have you done this??

@physicskate So sorry you’re having a hard time. I know I’m very lucky she sleeps for as long as she does. I honestly don’t know how she does it, she just started doing it on her own. Probably not what you wanted to hear

Not really, no... I feel like I've tried most things. Going to buy a Ewan today (can't hurt, right?). She's been in her cot since she grew out of her moses basket at 9 weeks. She won't take a dummy and is ebf. She sleeps in a sleeping bag. We've tried a fan for white noise. Dark room. Snuggles never ever calm her down but invariably wind her up.

And this all started two/ theee weeks ago. Before that, she was sleeping through until about 5am. She was never a good napper.

Ironically, the really troubles started when I read Gina ford's contented little baby!!!!

It makes me really want to stop breast feeding. I'm not enjoying it and feeling pretty 'used'. The only thing that calms her is boob so I feel like a walking cow and that's all I'm good for. I have no other way of calming her down. Patting and shushing has no effect but winding her up! Singing? Ha!

I'm at my wits end from getting sleep in half hour or so intervals (by the time she's been fed and back asleep and then time for me to fall back asleep).

physicskate I'm in the same boat but DD is 4.5 months. Could yours be going through the 4-month sleep regression late? I'm going to bed at 7pm and cosleeping to save my sanity: though DD refuses to feed lying down so I do still have to wake up properly, but having her right there seems to buy me a few 2-hour chunks and she settles quickly nestled against me.

Gina Ford's advice is useless unless your baby is naturally a Gina Ford baby.

I thought she already had, but maybe it's happening again? She had about 10 days of similar just before four months, but then she'd slept for longer stretches again.

A friend recommended Gina ford, not to take as gospel, but to help me to start thinking about routine (we have very little routine and I know that babies like routine because it tells them what to expect next). I was never going to follow her schedule and I think some of her understanding of breastfeeding goes against what I've read in studies.

She used to go down so easily in her cot! She still does mostly at least initially. She just won't stay asleep. I've been sleeping on a foldaway bed in her nursery, as my husband has to get up early to go to work, so it means he gets some sleep. So I've got some serious resentment brewing there too... he's had the nice bed and I've slept on a foldaway for nearly 6 months (or the couch).

I think part of it is I feel pretty isolated and was really appreciating an hour in the evening to 'do something for me'. My husband is goes to work before 7 and gets home about 6. I bath her at 7 and then put her to bed (after book and boob). So I don't get a lot of help... maybe I'm just really selfish? My expectations are clearly way off. But she doesn't really nap unless I rock her in her bouncer. So can't even sleep then as I have to rock her.

I don't do well with sleep deprivation, clearly.

I would throw away (or burn...) the Gina Ford and try The Gentle Sleep Book by Sarah Ockwell-Smith – it really helped me to see that, between the growth spurts, developmental leaps, regressions, teething and everything else, baby sleep isn't linear and that the first year is a rollercoaster!

If it helps, my DP is out 7-7 and DD has her bath, bag, book, boob, bed routine at 6-7; goes down at 7 and wakes at 7-ish; she takes all her naps in the sling and won't currently settle at night unless I lie down too, so I'm basically on duty 24/7 with no me-time in the week at all. And I'm pretty much expecting it to stay that way for a loooong time since she's EBF. It's not forever, is the best I can come up with? And since she's always been a crap sleeper I haven't had to adjust to any regressions, it's all a regression :)

Can she come in and cosleep with you on weekend nights to give you a little respite? Or (semi-)permanently cosleep and your husband takes the nursery bed?

Sorry to hijack, OP!

We stopped feeding to sleep at about four months, which helped I think. I think boob can become more of a hindrance than a help overnight if I'm honest as it can cause a lot of extra wake-ups that are just comfort feeding. Now boob isn't part of our bedtime routine any more: she is fed downstairs and then bedtime routine begins about 45 mins later. We used the Lucy Wolfe book.

If she wakes within a certain time of being put down, she's just soothed back to sleep with other methods. She generally only has one feed overnight now. It took a few nights of crying but she was never left to cry - I was beside her stroking and soothing and distracting her till she fell back asleep. But I'm pretty hardline on sleep so I didn't mind a bit of crying - I'm a crunchy attachment parent for everything else but not when it comes to sleep!

I meant to add that she's still EBF, we didn't switch to formula or anything. But I don't think breastfed has to equal bad sleep.