Desperate... please help

[Hulabalula]

My daughter is almost 6 months old. For the first 2.5 months of her life she was an excellent sleeper, waking every 3-4 hours for a feed night and day.

Around the 3 month mark it all went out the window. I’ve had people tell me it was early 4 month sleep regression BUT 3 months on it’s getting worse rather than better.

Feel like I’m just winging it, believing people when they say it’ll get better, but I think I’m about to have a breakdown. I’m lucky to get an hour before she wakes up again. Last night she woke every 7-15 mins.

There must be something waking her up but how do you even figure that out? How do people just know?! Pretty sure she isn’t too hot or cold. Tried calpol in case she was in pain. No effect.

She doesn’t even like co-sleeping. Or her own room. Or anything.

I’m at the point of thinking we are going to have to do CC as I’m so desperate (bottle and dummy refuser who won’t settle for her Dad) but I understand you shouldn’t do it if your child is in pain or genuinely hungry. How am I supposed to know?!

It’s just me and my husband. No family support. We have no idea what we are doing. Please help.

Hi @Hulabalula

I have literally posted something similar today. DD is almost 6 months as well, and nights are a nightmare at the moment. It's not even following a pattern so just have no idea what's going to happen from night to night other than we are going to get multiple wakings and I end up feeding back to sleep.

Its utterly draining isn't it.

No advice I am afraid, but you are definately not alone. Hope someone can offer some advice or reassurance soon.

Thanks @Waffle12 and sorry to hear you are struggling too. Hopefully someone will come along with some helpful advice soon!

No advice but solidarity. My DH is currently rocking our 5 month old. She goes to sleep at 7pm, wakes up at 8pm and then it is a BATTLE to get her back to sleep. We dont have evenings anymore. I can't see that it's ever going to improve. I've taken to co-sleeping to 'try to teach' her how to sleep ( I have literally no idea what I'm doing!!).
I read everywhere about frequent bought wakings but not a complete refusal to sleep before midnight. Feel like I've definitely fucked up somewhere along the way and like a massive failure.
Again, no advice but hopefully it helps to know you're not alone.

*night wakings sleep deprivation

@beyonceknows it does help to know we aren’t alone. With you on the complete lack of evenings. Total nightmare.

I’m also with you on feeling like a failure. I am pretty sure it’s not our fault but I blame myself all the time.

None of us are failures. We are all moms just doing our best. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture.

Try it and see. What's the worst that can happen

You are not a failure.
We all wing it, especially the first few years.

If there's no obvious reason like reflux/allergies/separation anxiety/hunger/thirst/teething/cot getting too small/sleeping bag too small/ then you might not be able to fix it. I firmly believe that all babies at some point or other (but their tends to be common ages) go through refusals to sleep/difficulties staying asleep/long periods awake (ours used to be awake from 1am -3am then moved to 3am -5am in the next phase!) and it may be that she's getting ready to drop a nap or just her brain getting too excited.
I would highly bet that's it's nothing you are or aren't doing it just is....... That doesn't help your situation but honestly I've been there, chasing the sleep, doing anything and every technique to get that sleep when actually its just totally unrealistic. Most babies are not 'sleeping through' at 6 months.
The best advice anyone have me was to have a routine and stick to it. It can be tempting to try this and that but actually it's difficult for your baby to learn to do anything without consistency and repetition. It worked for us and eventually with figured out that most 'bad' phases lasted around two weeks then slowly improved before the next one came!!

You have all my solidarity as it is horrendous but it does get better on the whole xx

The 4 month sleep regression isn't really a regression but a permanent change to how they sleep. I don't mean it won't get better but just that it doesn't go back on its own accord.

I think the main thing is difficulty in transitioning between sleep cycles. Which is where being fed, rocked to sleep can get interfere as they need you back to get back to sleep.

I've been there.. DS is now 3 and we survived! I don't know how some days as it felt relentless. I always felt he was the worst sleeper compared to other babies.. he now sleeps like a dream.

How are you settling her off to sleep when she wakes? Does she nap in the day with the same difficulties? The balance of under v over tired is a tricky one.

Try white noise

@Hulabalula I totally understand how you feel at the moment, I was in a similar boat to you my daughters sleep went crazy around the same age and it almost destroyed me. I didn’t know what was causing it, and was desperate to somehow “fix” it. I used to dread every bedtime/nighttime as I didn’t know how much sleep I would (or most likely wouldn’t!) get and became terribly anxious, not to mention exhausted.
I realised that there were two issues.

1. my daughter was hideously overtired from weeks of crap sleep
2. she couldn’t settle herself, she relied on either me or a dummy, and of course needed this everytime she woke to be able to go back off again. I firstly made sure that she napped well during the day by sticking to the appropriate awake times for her age and following her tired signs etc, also started putting her to bed a bit earlier as she seemed so tired. Then, and this is the bit that I know some will disagree with, we withdrew the dummy and did controlled crying with her. It’s not “cry it out” and I didn’t abandon her and leave her to cry, but I went in regularly to soothe and stroke her, and also stroke her face with a muslin cloth. I believe this part was critical as it helped her form a new sleep association, but one that she could replicate herself if that makes sense? The first couple of nights were hard but I just about felt ok knowing I was giving her comfort; and that if it worked she would be learning how to sleep well and getting good quality sleep and be happier for it. Within three nights she was sleeping 7pm-6am (or more) and was honestly like a different child. She would lie in her cot and snuggle her muslin comforter until she fell asleep and if she stirred in the night she would find it and cuddle it and nod back off. I appreciate it’s not for everyone, but it sounds as though you’ve tried all the tried and tested favourites like dummies and cosleeping etc and none of them are working for you. I figured I was going to be awake half the night trying to settle my daughter anyway, so had little to lose by CC, and when it ultimately worked life felt better for all of us. Sleep deprivation is horrible and can and will affect your mental health, I know it did mine, and I hated having an exhausted and miserable child that I felt I was doing a crap job of parenting, because I couldn’t make her happy and well rested. When it all came together she and I were much happier. The first morning my daughter woke and lay giggling and chatting in her cot because she was clearly content and well rested, I actually cried because it was so lovely to have a happy baby!! I think that once you know a baby can self settle when they wake in the night, and is well rested and not overtired (which in my experience generally means that they don’t wake up screaming and cross!) it’s easier to work out if there are any other causes if that makes sense? Like, if everything else is ok sleep wise and they generally put themselves back to sleep if they are tired, then if they don’t it’s probably because they do need that night feed or they are in pain and maybe need calpol and a cuddle whilst it “kicks in” It’s so hard to know what’s right, and what I did may not feel right to you. That’s fine; we all have different ways and ideas, but whatever you do, please don’t beat yourself up. Your little one is lucky to have such a lovely mum that is so desperate to help them as much as possible and find answers to make them happy. Sometimes you don’t “just know”‘what to do, it’s all just trial and error and doing what works for you xxx Sorry if all of that was very waffly, I hope even a tiny bit of that helps. I’ve been where you are, and it was awful so i couldn’t just ignore your post without at least trying to suggest something that might be of use. Big hugs xxx

I haven't got any majorly valuable advice I'm afraid but have you guys ruled out colic /reflux? It'd be no harm to try infacol for a few days to see if that helps? This helped my now 4 m/o DD who was very unsettled in the evenings from about 8 ish weeks.

She wasn't keen on the dummy initially either so I put a drop of either infacol or her vitamin D drops onto the dummy to encourage her to suck it and keep it in her mouth - she is now completely hooked.

She was still struggling with daytime naps so a friend gave me a sleepyhead insert thing for her cot and she's doing better now. She likes the swaddled feeling and is napping for longer since we started using it. They're bloody expensive though!

If formula fed, could it be an issue with the brand you are using? Have you tried switching to another? A friend mentioned this helped her DS

My DS sleep issues were behavioural as we didn't establish a solid routine initially and kinda went with the flow. Seems he absolutely thrives on routine. I put a routine in place at about 4 m/o and still do the exact same steps every evening (he's now 23 months) which helped a lot although we did resort to the crying it out method when he was approx 6.5 months old to get him to sleep through the night.

Interesting @SlB09 that you raise the issue of allergies. She has already been diagnosed with CMPA and soya allergy. I think she’s allergic to something else but trying to identify which allergen is proving difficult and as she is EBF I must be continuing to expose her. She was given a short course of piriton recently and she was a much happier baby with it. After the course finished it all went downhill again... it can cause drowsiness but she never seemed drowsy with it. Just much happier and more comfortable.

And @neverornow that’s a good point. She suffered when she was littler due to CMPA and infacol didn’t help but could try it again.

@Hartleyhare1206 I think we need to do CC I just need to rule out that she’s not in any pain first...

@April45 I can sometimes cuddle her back to sleep mostly she wants feeding, I think mostly comfort feeds. But when I have successfully managed to get her to fall asleep in her crib she still wakes a few mins later?! Her naps aren’t great but I can usually manage to get her close to a total of 3 hours in the day.

It sounds like it's more to do with being uncomfortable.. the bf helps to comfort but then her tummys hurting because of it. Can you get her in with gp to talk it through. Then on the short term try settling without bf it will take longer but she should hopefully sleep longer as her tummy won't hurt.

Have you tried the I love you massage.. clips on you tube, it can help to relieve wind.

@Hulabalula just do what feels right for you. Sleep training isn’t for everyone I get it, and allergies and reflux make it all ten times worse, my DD has silent reflux so I spent much of her first 6 months worried she was in pain. For us, we got quite confused between what was her in discomfort and what was her being overtired. It’s a total bitch. No one gushes about all this crap on FB and Instagram though do they, everyone is too busy trying to make out life with a baby is glorious and wonderful. Sometimes it isn’t, it’s just bloody hard! You’re doing an amazing job, just remember that (or try to, through the sleep deprived fog!!!)

What is she sleeping and eating like during the day?

@ss1987 irregular nap pattern but usually 3 totalling 3 hours with the lunchtime one lasting about 1.5hrs.

Feeding.... she is easily distracted so we do have a bit of reverse cycling going on for sure but not quite sure it’s always hunger? She always feeds more in the afternoon and evening. Not much of an appetite in the morning.

@April45 I think you are right about the discomfort. Will try with the massage. Have taken her to GP more times than I care to admit and not really getting anywhere. Have spoken to the HV team lead and they are coming to see me to see if they can help so that’s something.

@Hartleyhare1206 thank you!!! Sometimes it’s nice to just have someone agree with you about how hard it is. I knew it would be tough but I didn’t realise how hard it would be not ever really knowing if anything is “wrong” with them (ie pain, discomfort). I am naturally a problem solver too so I’m finding it tough that I don’t know how to help her.

I was thinking more if you’ve started her on solids? When I started my daughter she went from sleeping great to waking every 20 mins 😩 stopped solids for a few days and she went back to normal. Realised she wasn’t ready or what I was giving her was either too much to not agreeing with her. Just a thought

Oh sorry @ss1987

We give her some veg purée once or twice a day but this problem with sleep started so long before we introduced solids I wasn’t sure if it was the cause? Although I appreciate it can cause digestion issues so could be adding to the problem!

Op and @Waffle12 both your babies might benefit from a routine. I've just started the Lucy Wolfe one for 6-8month old and so far it's really working well. Get the day time sorted and nights start to get better themselves.

Thanks @Horehound looks good actually - I’ve just ordered her book. Thank you

Ah right - my Lb has CMPA and soya allergy, we had the same issue and turned out it was strawberries . However he wasn't BF. I do think there is one other thing we havnt found yet but he's a million times better than he was.

So advice is abit different knowing your lo has allergies. Personally I wouldn't do CC as you just feel terrible doing it and then realising it was all due to pain/discomfort etc. However this is a very personal decision and my opinion only. If the piriton really helped and you noticed a marked difference then that's quite a clear sign that there probably is something else and it's not as clear cut as them just not sleeping. Have you been seen by a hospital consultant and had either blood tests or skin prick testing?

Allergy babies (from my extensive hours of googling when mine was little!) can have sleep issues as in the months they would ordinarily be learning to sleep they may be in pain, bloated, can't get comfortable etc so don't have the proper opportunity to learn. They need that comforting touch, settling etc. You havnt done anything wrong, you are not 'making a rod for your own back' you are responding to your child's needs.

Draft in help if you can, childminder, neighbour, anyone!! For us weaning didn't help at all as my son had quite severe reflux anyway, and some children are actually worse when they start weaning but a big improvement is noticed once they can sit on their own.

Honestly you will get there, it's not an easy ride with allergies, no sleep etc. Your doing your best and that's all they need from you xxx

Just to add I was ok with trying cc but my husband wasn't and so we are trying the stay and support method (kind if plus a few tricks of our own) in the book although we reached the first step and haven't progressed just yet but it's still better than standing for half an hour rocking. It means he will now stop using that as a crutch to get to sleep.
But anyway we do our bedtime routine and then put him in his cot face down and we put on white noise loudish and pat his bum/back he flips his head down and then goes of to sleep. There is slight fussing but he's usually asleep in under five mins.
I gradually reduce the white noise and then remove it although for daytime naps I keep it there otherwise he wakes up after his first sleep cycle. Doesn't seem to mind it not being there at night..

You'll find a way...it is exhausting though x