Sleep deprived mama and baby... please help!

[S082018]

Where do I start?

Those of you who are regular posters on here probably know that I’ve posted a lot about sleep issues with my little one who is now coming up to 4 months old. Recently, I posted about buying him a sleepyhead to sleep in. Whilst it worked bloody wonders for a week, it’s all gone downhill again. So we have a number of issues:

A) I put him down to sleep between 7.00pm - 7.30pm. I will put him down drowsy after he’s been fed and burped and will do the shh-pat technique. This is very hit and miss. Some nights it works a treat and other nights it doesn’t (when it doesn’t work, I put him to sleep in my arms and then put him down but this is a whole other issue!!)

B) regardless of how he is put to sleep (I.e in my arms or shh pat) he will always wake after 40 minutes. I will try the shh pat again. Sometimes it works, other times I have to pick him up again. It can take up to over an hour to get him back to sleep.

C) when he does finally go to sleep (this can be anywhere between 8pm-9.30pm. Last night was 10.30pm 😭), he will sleep soundly for a few hours but then starts to get restless and fidgety. He has a lovely head of hair and has started to pull at it. He thrashes his head from side to side, the whole time his eyes closed. I will try to settle him by putting his dummy in and holding his arms gently on his chest, sometimes gently patting his chest. This works for a short time but then he starts again.
At the moment, he is waking every 1.5-2hours in the night. If he doesn’t get back to sleep quick enough, he will cry inconsolably.

D) despite the issues above, he will sleep absolutely solidly on my chest or in the crook of my arm to the side. Not a peep out of him. I’ll admit that in the last few nights, I’ve allowed this to happen simply so that both of us get a few hours of rest in.

E) when I do put him to sleep in my arms, regardless of how long I have held him for, the second I put him down his eyes ping open and we have to start all over again.

I am utterly exhausted. Right now I am writing this whilst he is napping on me as it’s the only way I know he will get the sleep he needs. It’s such a catch 22. I want to be able to put him down but I also want him to have the sleep he needs for his growth and development so I end up having to hold him. He is held for all of his naps in the day.

I think it’s important to share that he is having 3 naps a day. His 3rd nap I don’t let him sleep past 5pm. He is formula fed and feeds every 3 hours or thereabouts. He has one feed during the night. I also use white noise all night.

Please please please tell me that it gets better! Or if anybody has any practical advice I would love to hear it. I am absolutely drained, don’t feel myself any more and I feel like the lack of sleep is taking some of the enjoyment away from being a first time mum to my gorgeous boy.

I just feel like things are getting worse each and every day and I really don’t know what to do any more.

You're at four months, the worst time for baby sleep! They've passed the newborn sleep stage and started to sleep in cycles but are not yet capable of linking them together consistently. Those cycles are about 45 minutes long, so it's very common to wake up about 40-45 minutes in.

My advice is to go to bed very early yourself to maximise sleep time and, if there's someone else there, take it in shifts so that both of you get at least a few solid hours. Good luck!

www.healthline.com/health/parenting/4-month-sleep-regression

Oh, also, if you're trying to put down once asleep, wait 8 minutes before attempting it once they're asleep. And put something warm in the cot to swap out so that there isn't a temperature change.

Thank you @FourPlasticRings! Have you been through this yourself? How long did it last for you?

The heat doesn't help at the moment either!

I'm going to be honest here and say it, your baby will sleep through and get there but my eldest took until 2 years old and my 1 year old has just started going all the way through 7 . 30pm to 6am everyday.

You need to give it more time as four months still young really.

Have you tried putting one of your tops in his bed? As in, a top that you've worn and smells of you (maybe a pyjama top you've recently worn). Perhaps he needs the smell of his mum to get off to sleep.

At four months, we were still putting DS to bed when we went at 11pm or so and giving him a last feed then. Some evenings he'd dose on us, others he'd be awake. It was closer to 6 months before we got into the habit of putting him down earlier and even now (9 months), his bedtime is about 8.30pm. He sometimes wakes after his first sleep cycle finishes (after 40 mins) but we generally can get him back to sleep and then he's down until morning. Not sure if that helps at all?

Four months - you are firmly in sleep regression land and it's completely normal and yes, it is hell.

I do think 4 months is far too early to expect anything from their sleep, they're tiny.

DD is nearly 2 and is still awake twice a night, if not more. She was up at 4.40 this morning. Sigh.

It lasted a month or so I think but happened a bit earlier. The heat definitely does not help!

Ugh it's so hard isn't it? If he's thrashing what about one of these ? https://www.lovetodream.co.uk/?utmsource=google&utmmmedium=cpc&utmcampaign=1557989985&utmmcontent=57846325623&utmterm=baby%20swaddle&gclid=CjwKCAjwqpP2BRBTEiwAfpiD-zi55tSimXA6WGIiRjbN-Fy1M5lkxabm7rQRTynoexpwpTQAzefK5RoCgSsQAvDBwE I used a swaddle and then into the sleepy head. When she was particularly bad I'd have the sleepy bed on the bed with me next to the wall and I'd just be very close to it

It does get better but in all honesty he is sleep pattern seems pretty normal for a baby his age (my son is pretty similar). It might be easier to accept that it could take a month (or a year) until he starts sleeping in much larger chunks and instead focus on making it work for you eg is there someone that can help you take naps during the day or put him down with a bottle so you can go to bed a bit earlier and catch up on sleep before he goes down. The sleepyhead helped us settle my eldest son more easily but realistically he wasn't sleeping through the night (or even partway through the night) until he was nearly 2. Most sleep trainers/health visitors won't recommend any sleep training until 6 months (inc ssh pat) as it can take them a while to learn how to self soothe so the priority should be getting them down in the calmest way possible (as stress before sleep will only make their sleep worse).

Co-sleeping can also make it much easier for you so you have less awake time during the night and can get back to sleep as quickly as possible after a sleep. As long as you follow the guidelines it's pretty safe.

All totally normal.

It’s why I co-sleep though! I made the bed safe, it’s just me and baby and we don’t have any risk factors. We get a good 10hrs with 1-2 feeds.

But she doesn’t sleep at all without me. It’s not forever though and I enjoy the snuggles.

@Affrm I agree he's still so young! It's not so much the sleeping through, I can deal with the occasional wake up. But every 1.5 hours is exhausting and definitely a new thing!

@LolaLollypop thanks for the suggestion. I have tried that. It made a difference when he was newborn but not so much now sadly

@mynameiscalypso thank you for this. A few people have said that sleep settles down after 6 months. I've been a bit more relaxed about his bedtime tonight as it's not like he was settling down at a decent time anyway. He's just nodded off on my chest. Scared to put him down just yet!!

@WhatsHappeningCaroleBaskin yes I am pretty convinced we are in the thick of the regression now. Surely it can't get any worse can it?! I think I had more optimistic expectations as we had one week before all of this where he slept like a dream. I felt like a new woman and that I'd won the jackpot 😁 didn't last very long mind.

Feel for you waking so early!

@skinnyhotchoc I have bought him one of these but he hated it! He was in a grosnug sleeping bag as a newborn but he's just too big for it now and so we transitioned him from swaddling completely. Plus it's far too warm for anything like that at the moment!

I'm trying the sleepyhead on the bed tonight as we have moved into the spare room for the night as it's much cooler in here as opposed to my 25 degree bedroom!

@poloevi thank you for your detailed response. I opted to leave out the shh and pat tonight and he's nodded off on my chest - still laying on me now as I write this! Maybe it will be more effective as he gets older. I was just mindful that he's getting very reliant on being rocked, shh'd, cuddle and held to sleep and I figured it might be time to break those sleep associations now. Maybe it's too soon to do that then?

@Megan2018 we have had fhe odd few nights where we have co-slept and it makes some difference, not completely great though!

I keep telling myself he won't stay this small forever and to cherish the snuggles as you do but god what I would do for a decent nights sleep right now!

DS is 6 months and gets cuddled to sleep all the time. He also sleeps pretty well so I don't think it's a bad thing, certainly works for us. He also naps a lot. He probably still has maybe 4 naps a day? He just sleeps whenever he's sleepy. There's so much pressure (especially from older relatives) to prevent "bad habits" but they're still so little they have no idea what a bad habit is. Just do what you have to do so everyone gets some sleep.