4 month regression help!

[Becksterbiskit]

Hi there,

Our baby is now 4 months old and his sleep has already been much worse the past few weeks. However, since last week he has been waking all the time and needing patting / turning back to sleep. While he's much better at not being picked up (something we have been trying to work on), because he wakes so often it means we don't get any sleep. Last night I took the first few hours then my partner the next.

I have read that he is likely to wake more at each sleep cycle now but sometimes he can do an hour and a half which makes it seem like he can get through that on occasions.

Generally before he was sleeping about 4- 6 hours, feeding then sleeping 2 or 3 more (with some patting sometimes in the second part). His naps have always been short - 30/40 minutes unless in the sling. Until a few weeks ago we were always rocking and holding to sleep. I've been trying to put him down awake in the cot now for naps, then shush and pat - some naps he can do this others he gets very upset and I then hold him to sleep before putting in cot. Generally at night he falls asleep while burping him so he's not always awake when put down.

I'm wondering if anyone can advise how the 4 month regression panned out and if you used any useful strategies? I've had some articles say things improve naturally while others say we need to intervene with sleep training. He definitely can't self soothe yet, which is why we started to out down awake but as I mentioned this is 50:50 success atm.

Thanks so much!

Our sons sleep definitely improved after the 4 month sleep regression, but that was basically because all our tried and tested methods of getting him to sleep at that point, stopped working! So we were forced to do something about it.

What worked for us was gradually reducing the input we gave him. We went from bouncing to sleep, to holding to sleep, to putting down awake on his side and patting his bum to sleep and then rolling him on to his back. He finally slept well at about 5.5-6 months when he could roll around and sleep on his front - which he has now done ever since.

Obviously won't work for all babies! But that's what we did.

Thanks so much... Yes, we started to stop rocking and are now at patting and shusshing in the cot on his side. Did your little one eventually not need patting? I'm aware

... that he probably won't learn to self soothe (when he wakes) while I'm still patting him to sleep but maybe it's gradual.

Interesting I can see mine being a front sleeper so maybe he'll do that once he can roll!

Yep - we even stopped the patting gradually. God knows if he actually needed all of this headspace 😂 went down from patting, to just holding a hand on his bum til he drifted off.

But yeah, the front sleeping was definitely the game changer for us!! You might only be 4-6 weeks away from that!

That would be amazing! How old is your little one now? Is he able to soothe back to sleep when he wakes up? I keep hearing that the regression means they will permanently be waking up every sleep cycle unless we teach them to self soothe! Hoping that reducing the help we give him will aid with this...

Following

My baby is 17 weeks and refuses to sleep

Oh no! 4 month regression too or been that way always?

4 month regression

He just won't sleep longer than 2/3 hours!

I posted almost the same post a few days ago. Now 2.5 weeks into sleep regression and have postive news!

Two weeks ago my LO was waking 8 times a night. In the last couple of days he is back to pre sleep regression patterns of 3 wakings which I am fine with as he is bf and still hungry at night. In addition he is extending naps from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours and is much less grizzly. He has also learnt to blow raspberries and seems much more aware. I didn't do anything to improve his sleep during the regression.

Fingers crossed this lasts but I wanted to share as there is hope things will improve for you soon.

Oh wow. That's great - thank you for sharing!! Is it leap 4?! Has he completed it?

I am hoping he has. He is 20 weeks old but was born 2 weeks early. We have only had a couple of good days so far post regression so I hope I am not speaking too soon.

I read the poor sleep lasts 2-4 weeks but was feeling disheartened on here as some people were telling me it was a permanent change. I am still feeding to sleep but he is now settling himself between cycles without me.

Here is my previous post in case anyone is interested
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/3835480-4-month-sleep-regression

Thanks for this! Is it still going well?

We have now had 4 nights of much improved sleep. 7.30- 2.00 then back until 4.30/5... Last night he slept until 4 but we put him down after 8. Apparently under 6 months don't have melatonin until 8pm so thought we would try that!

However, I went to a talk by a sleep consultant and she said there is a 20 week regression is this something anyone has heard of?!

Little one has had his jabs today so I'm sure the sleep will be now further disrupted!

It gets better, or at least it did for our chap and all the other babies in our NCT group. Some of us intervened and others didn't, and it didn't seem to make any difference to when they started sleeping again (as in, the babies whose parents intervened didn't get over it any quicker). I honestly think it's just a phase they go through and it's developmental. But I know it's MISERABLE when you're in the thick of it.

I didn't start any kind of gentle sleep training until about 6 months and then it was gradual retreat. So just gradually reducing the amount of input from us bit by bit. Now at 1 year I can usually just pop him in his cot and say night night and he grumps off to sleep, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. He generally sleeps through or has one brief wake up but then has a random phase where it's awful and there's no rhyme or reason to it. My only advice really is to do whatever you have to do to get as much sleep as possible and try not to stress about it too much because it's often a sign that their little brains are working on something big and they've got to figure it out first. My DS has a dreadful phase a while back and all of a sudden was crawling!

I recommend downloading the Wonder Weeks app. It's brilliant, based on the book and follows the theory that babies go through developmental 'leaps' where they suddenly go through a real spurt of learning and this makes them cranky (and sleep badly). I found it comforting during the worst sleeping times because it helped me understand why he was being so tricky. Good luck!

I'm in the same boat OP! It's so hard! I was wondering if my LO was hungry during the night because she is so distracted during the day. She has been EBF but after such a bad sleep 2 nights ago I decided to give her a bottle of formula yesterday after her last nap to top her up (her weight gain isn't great so I was worried about her calorie intake as well) and she slept much better - 5 hours, feed and then 6 hours! I'm planning on doing the same tonight and see if that was the reason or if she just slept so well because she was exhausted from the previous night....