4 month sleep regression?! Dear lord, help

[Biscuitsandteaplease]

So my DS has been sleeping 7-7 since around 7 weeks old and only waking for 1 or 2 feeds before that since birth! He has also been napping 3 times a day really well.
He often needed the odd resettle needed but dummy reinsert and a comforting pat usually did it and he's happily go off again.

I thought he might need less naps but is inconsolable by the end of the day as it is so I doubt it's that

As of the last couple of days, he's been sleeping until around 2am and then wide awake for eternity around 2 hours and then going into an unsettled sleep until 7, waking every 45 mins or something but going back to sleep with dummy and a pat again
He is swaddled in sleepyhead in next 2 me in our room and has a dummy. Our room is temperature controlled so I know he's not cold or hot.

He has started to be able to break out of his swaddle so I was thinking of changing it in case that's it

I thought he might be hungry but he's rarely interested in his breakfast bottle at 7 so I'm not sure it's that but I am going to try it tonight and see if it helps

He's also off his food in general, he was having 150-180ml x 5 a day but now is ranging between 100-150ml and is refusing top ups

Any tips for surviving this hell? Will he grow out of it or am I going to need to move him into his own room in case it's us moving that's waking him? I have noticed he'll wake up if i roll over in bed now..
someone please help

The four month sleep broke my son completely so I've no advice really except to stop swaddling and maybe move to a gro bag? We kept swaddling for too long.

As an aside, I've just had a baby and we were lectured at length about specifically not using a sleepyhead in a next to me cot. We have neither so it wasn't relevant, but apparently it's quite a common and dangerous thing to do. I can only imagine adding a swaddle on top of that would be even more frowned upon.

@mistermagpie
I think you're right, I was worried about that and I will try the grobags, I have some in preparation

As for the sleepyhead, I am aware of this and am always conflicted. It seems to be a dividing issue and I am expecting to get a lot of the same message but I had a long talk with my midwife and she said she couldn't see any issue with it and have researched with sleepyhead themselves and have enough info to be comfortable for now.

I know it's not recommended by lullaby trust and I will stop using it once he is showing any signs of rolling but for now, the sleep is more important for my MH so got to get it any way I can.

Thank you anyway though

No I get it totally, I let my non-sleeping son sleep in a mamaroo and that's even worse I think, but desperate times! You have to just weigh up the pros and cons. They were very specific about that particular combination at the hospital, which I thought was weird but suggests it's a common thing to do.

My really-good-sleeping other son was never swaddled, and so I've no idea why I persisted with it for his brother. But I'd stop that and consider maybe moving the crib away from your bed? If you are disturbing him. Also white noise is good to try.

The dreaded 4 month sleep regression (as an aside, I am ridiculously jealous of the 7-7 sleep from 7 weeks old! I hope your baby goes back to that soon.) I am wondering how you usually get your baby off to sleep at 7pm? Or for naps? Eg do they self settle or do you rock/feed to sleep etc?

@hodgepodge21

I know we were incredibly lucky for it, every morning I felt thankful if that makes it any better!

He self-settles with his dummy for all sleeps and sometimes without the dummy even when he spits it out, he goes down awake but tired and is usually asleep within 5-10mins with no crying or anything. We used to rock him but stopped because we found it actually made him more awake in the end (and it was doing my back in!!) so he kind of started self-settling on his own, amazingly 

@mistermagpie yes white noise is amazingly effective for us! I forgot to mention that.
I can play it whenever and he will always fall asleep if tired enough

Id personally take baby out of the swaddle now - at 4 months it may be annoying him rather than soothing.
My baby done the exact same thing with the 2 hour wakes up from 4 months and I hate to say it lasted 6 weeks for us! Not every night but it was a good few times a week!
Slowly got better x

I'm really hoping it only lasts for weeks, I've really scared myself reading online about how it won't stop until they can self-settle! I don't even know where I'd start

It seems to be bad every other night so far but he's napping ok in the daytime so at least getting some rest on the bad days for now, seriously thrown me though

Tonight is an 'other' night so preparing for the worst 😴😴

The 4 month sleep regression lasted 6 weeks for us. He hasn’t returned to what he was like before, and now will only co sleep which wasn’t a factor in his first 12 weeks, so we have a sleep consultant coming to see us next week. It got beyond a joke and I’m still traumatised by it! One night we didn’t manage to settle him until 4am and most nights he was up every 45 min.

@HayleyHaystack That sounds awful, I really hope the sleep consultant can help you out because that does not sound sustainable at all.

Where did you get the info for them just out of interest, in case it gets to that for us too?!