What aam I doing wrong?!

[Fivebyfive2]

Please help, we're having sleep trouble with our ds, he's 4 and a bit months so I know we're in the regression stage but I'm so confused!

From 12 weeks he started doing, roughly, 8pm till 1 or 2am, feed, nappy change, feed from other side and was getting good at self settling to sleep with his sounds on until about 6 or 7am.

Since his jabs at 4 months almost 2 weeks ago it has all gone to pot! He now seems unable to self settle, although we do keep trying. Our routine is - take him up to bed just before 7pm, change, story/song, feed and put him down, he's usually asleep between 7.30 and 8. He usually wakes around midnight, which is fine, but now comes the issue... If he doesn't fall asleep straight after the feed and stay asleep when we put him down, he will be awake for literally hours?! Last night he finally fell asleep at 2am only to wake at 2.30 and finally go to sleep properly at 3. We try everything, white noise, lullabies, singing, patting, rocking, feeding again, you name it!! He's often pretty happy, just wide awake and then gets upset towards the end of the 'night party ' because he's over tired.

We keep the days bright, play, fresh air, background noise and I try to get him to nap after 1.5 to 2 hours of wake time. He usually has 2 naps of anything between 30 and 60 mins and 1 that's about 2 hours. At night it's dark, shushed tones, we don't play/interact too much with him and we stopped changing his nappy unless he's pooed.

Does anyone have any advice how we can keep his night wakings shorter?? Should we keep trying to encourage him to self settle and hope he gets back into the swing of it?

Sometimes he does go straight to sleep after the feed and then he'll wake again about 5ish which is fine, it's the extended wake time we're struggling with.

He's breastfed and sleeps in a snuzpod in our room.

Help!! Xx

Ride it out, it won't last forever :)

Take it turns the be 'on duty'

Keep up good habits and routines.

I hope you're right I really worry he is not getting enough sleep 🙁

Maybe we're confusing him by trying different things to get him to sleep?? Should we be more consistent? He used to fall back sleep with his ollie owl on the heartbeat setting but when that stopped happening we started trying other sounds and us patting and singing. If that doesn't work we resort back to rocking and/or feeds whilst singing to him.

I should note, we will leave him a bit if he's just awake, but don't let him cry. Fully prepared to be told we should, but we just can't, I guess we're big softies!

you shouldn't let him cry - whinging perhaps, but not crying :)

Have you tried massage? My LO isn’t as old as yours, so not in regression, but whenever he is fussy from a growth spurt etc I massage his feet and legs before bed when he’s all fed, in pjs, with a low light and white noise. I swear by it! Might be worth a shot to see if your LO likes it?

I also use the white noise from Ollie the owl as a sign for him that it’s sleep time - I only ever put it on when I’m soothing him to sleep. The other settings didn’t really work, just the white noise (even though it makes me want To pull my own teeth out!!!) For example if I have to change his nappy half way through, it is turned off until we are back in position to sooth to sleep

Consistency with soothing technique might help like you suggest - it’s easy to jump from thing to thing and actually end up stimulating them rather than soothing! I know I’ve done it a million times. I was advised to stick with each soothing technique for 15 mins (unless it’s causing distress!) and when I tried it I realised that it was a really long time and although I could have sworn I was doing a technique for ‘ages’ before, i actually wasn’t!

We do cuddle and pat on back - if he fusses I will rearrange/move shoulders/shift up and down etc but still patting and nothing else.

These things work for us but every baby is different, hoping they work for you too!