Is anyone else following the extremely vague and lazy "wait it out and hope it spontaneously resolves itself, maybe solids/crawling/walking/time/eventual night-weaning/magic/bribery once she can talk or be reasoned with" baby sleep plan?
We're nipple-deep in the four-month regression, which followed fast from the 8-week-jabs endless night poo era, then the 12-week hourly waking growth spurt. Throw early teething,
a late tongue tie division and a crap reaction to 16-week jabs into the mix – all in the same week! Which is when she migrated from Snuzpod to sleeping in my armpit – and you get a shitstorm of night wakings, my solution to which is:
plonk baby (now 21 weeks) in bed with me each night – after first making comatose with boob after rock-solid bedtime routine – and reapply boob as needed. Sometimes sleepily snuggling works in the middle of the night. Sometimes she wakes, babbles, pats around to check I'm there, and resettles. (Rare as a unanimous AIBU? thread, but like sunshine when it happens!)
Sometimes we start the night with a 3-hour chunk, other times 45 minutes. Some nights she wakes up only 4 times, others what feels like 4,000. Very little crying unless more teeth/colds, in which case howling then calpol and boob and a lie-in if she grants it. (I know the advice is to wake at the same time each day but (a) the baby wakes herself at the crack of dawn most days and when she doesn't (b) if she was up for two hours howling because of her teeth, I'm not going to enforce a wake-up for the sake of some Gina Ford nonsense.)
The 45-minute wake-ups are guaranteed if I put her down in her sidecar crib now, or even if leave the room – sometimes she wakes straight away if I try to swap with DP. Even in deep sleep she has a batlike sense for my being in the room. She generally starts the night starfished on the bed; as the night goes on she gets more unsettled and likes my armpit to snuggle into best. Perhaps it's the woolly mammoth furriness?
She's not great at feeding lying down but I'm persevering because I'm lazy. Occasionally I attempt the pull-off thing of putting my finger in her mouth to delatch once she's asleep but I'm too knackered to do it consistently or time it to gradually reduce feeds, I think I'm doing it in a half-hearted "gosh I really should sort this sleep thing". Mostly I do it so I can go to sleep if I'm feeding sitting up. I've no idea how to shhhh-pat; PUPD seems like an awful lot of effort with a heavy baby when I could be lying down, and deeply confusing; gradual chair or whatever makes me want to weep with exhaustion more than the current situation; CC or CIO is neverrrrrrr going to happen. On the other hand, I have wistful recollections of evenings, of my lovely DP, of times when I ate dinner somewhere other than over a snoozing baby's head in the dark...
Basically is anyone else doing what I'm doing to improve their baby's sleep, i.e. not very much at all, and wants to commiserate while we ride it out, slash create bad habits, construct towering Jengas of rods for backs, build sleep crutches, and generally arse it up? Any experienced "totally winged it and it worked out fine" mothers want to share delightful stories of "Oh one day he just pushed the boob away, fell asleep and did 12 hours and it's been a fairytale ever since, I got my bed and my sex life back" lazy parenting magic?
DP & I are softies who plan on an open-door policy of "if the kid can't sleep because of nightmares or growing pains, come on in our bed, they're only little", have fond memories of childhood shenanigans of sleeping on the landing or sneaking down to see what the grown-ups are doing, BUT also have no interest in "giant floor bed co-sleeping til 20" and quite like each other and the idea of the kid in her own room eventually, it would be nice to have some hope.
::rambles on in a sleep-deprived manner while teething DD snores on my shoulder, preps coffee machine for tomorrow, hopes there are other chaotic parents out there doing the absolute least::
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Waiting it out
burritofan · 18/09/2019 20:28
Eurgh. A few nights ago Baby Burrito slept for nearly four hours at the start of the night. Like a fool, I thought loftily, "Ah, the four-month regression is coming to an end, we will see more of these lengthy sleeps and gradually she will consolidate; I am champion parent".
Friday night she woke after two hours, burning up, with a big old fever. Last night she woke up yelling every 20-45 minutes, snot streaming from her nose at all times. She was half-asleep – just picking her up would make her drowsy – but couldn't stay asleep/stop yelling. DP and I took it in turns to deal with her and as a consequence are both seeing stars this morning.
Fenella Thank you for this. Only two years to go, then! 
John Ahahaha. I am looking forward to and quietly dreading weaning her. All that extra effort when I'm dead on my feet.
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@bottomflannel Ah thankyou but I understand. They are quite expensive but might just bite the bullet.
Last night was weirdly good, but bad. Went to bed at 7.30 and woke up twice before 9 
BUT, then slept til 1.30 and fed straight back to sleep, slept til 4.15 at which point I had to change his nappy which fully woke him and we partied til 5.30. He then slept til 9(a new record) with a tiny feed around 7. Kind of good, I guess.
I tried the 'lie down and pretend to be asleep' at the 4am wake but that just ended in me getting clawed in the face while he chatted away happily to himself.
Hope you all had a good night, although the vibe of this thread will tell me you haven't.
@burritofan I must have visited and accidently ordered some of your tacos nap fighting is a firm favourite here too. I don't think long naps exist, everyone else must be lying.
Babies fingernails being so tiny and hard to trim makes the clawing a fun, dangerous game too; hopefully I don't lose an eye.
Dreampoo sounds fun. I usually just have annoying insomnia for the 4hr chunk baby whuut does sleep so when he wakes for a feed I've only been asleep for half an hour of it
@Harrysmummy246 sounds like a good night for you! Apart from nearly being pushed out your own bed.
Whuut I know the feeling, no judgment. It's not the baby you hate, it's the situation. It helps me when I'm getting frustrated to sometimes put her down somewhere safe – the crib where she never bloody sleeps, for instance – and step away for a minute (I figure she's crying anyway with me there, so a minute without me isn't terrible) just to take ten deep breaths and remind myself she's not doing it on purpose, there's no baby-led Machiavellian plot to steal my sleep. She just doesn't know how to sleep! It's not her fault. It's mine for being the idiot who looked DP dreamily in the eye and said a baby would be a lovely idea.
physicskate I've heard that too, but have never timed it properly. I basically jiggle the sling or pram when she stirs. Most of the time nothing happens but we're starting to get the occasional hour-long nap. One nap out of 4 a day, 4-5 days out of 7. I think she'll just nap more deeply when she can run around and physically exhaust herself instead of her current lifestyle of being carried around like a tiny maharajah.
I slept so deeply during DD's initial bout of sleep last night I thought she'd done a unicorn sleep-through. It was 40 minutes...
Guys. I can’t read everything I’ve missed because I’m still too fucking tired but I come to bring good news and hope. DD is now 8 months and has been the worst sleeper always. Even cashiers at our local supermarket have taken to asking me if I’ve had any sleep yet. But this week, she has started to sleep 4-5 hours at a stretch. And I think it’s because she’s starting to crawl. Solids made no difference but I think all the movement is knackering her out. She only woke twice last night. 6.30-6.30 
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I've got a 18 week old DD. Naps are awful but nighttime is (currently) going well.
I have no idea if these things have actually helped with the night sleep but I think they might have done. Apologies if you are already doing these things or have decided you don't want to.
I started this at 10 weeks.
Firstly I learnt that it is the thicker creamier hind milk which helps them sleep and that when they constantly just have a quick top up often they only get the fore milk which is more watery. So I started pumping after my day feeds and getting the creamier stuff. I pump enough to have 6-7oz minimum. I also pump at 10.30pm to make sure my supply doesn't drop. Then I give it to her at 11pm in a bottle
Instead of a dreamfeed we wake her up completely, lights on and a nappy change, regardless of whether she needs it or not. Obviously she doesn't like this much but then we give her the bottle still with the light on. She absolutely guzzles it down, and after burping and a little cuddle she gets very sleepy again and we just put her in her crib and she falls asleep immediately (this was very surprising to me and I still feel nervous every night she won't go down!)
She currently sleeps through after this until at least 5am and sometimes even 7am. She's in a next to me crib so if she wakes at 5am I put the dummy back in and she often snoozes for a while longer. Once she makes it clear she's not going to snooze anymore I feed her but it's rarely before 6.30am these days.
God I hope me writing that hasn't jinxed it!
So I think this process firstly gives her more calories at night and secondly giving her the bottle has broken the attachment to the boob at night. I also think there is something about waking her up fully which prevents more activity when she wakes later - not entirely sure how that works but it seems to!
I hope that's of some help.
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