4 month transition to cot and regression?

[BopaEli]

DS is 4 months old and EBF. He’s our first child. We had to move him to a cot because he started to roll and so the baby hammock he used to sleep in wasn’t safe anymore. In his hammock he used to sleep about 4.5, then 3, then 1.5 hours between about 8pm and 6:30am. I managed to add on an hour by co-sleeping with him until 7:30. All good and well.

Since sleeping in his cot, his sleep has gone down the toilet. I expected the first couple of nights to not be great but last night (night 4) he woke crying after every 1 hour and 10 mins...! I can’t distinguish between his cries, they all sound the same to me. I try to get him back to sleep without feeding (change nappy, rock, sing), but usually he ends up on the boob.

His bedtime routine is bath (every other night), nappy change, bedclothes on, feed, song and rock to sleep. Sometimes he conks out on the boob and I put him down to sleep. He usually needs to be resettled a couple of times before he’s sleeping for his first stretch. Resettling consists of picking him up (he usually falls asleep straight away even if he’s been crying) and putting him back down. Sometimes it takes a long time for him to fall asleep. When this happens, he’s not crying, just not interested in sleeping even if he woke up from his last nap an hour or 3 hours or whatever before bedtime.

He’s a cat-napper. He usually has about 4 or 5 30-min naps in the day. He’ll nap longer if he’s in the sling (up to 2 hours) but he’s heavy now (7.5kg) and my back can’t take it every day. I used to get him down for naps by playing white noise and lying next to him on my bed and patting him. I would then put him in his hammock asleep. I have tried this since he’s been sleeping in the cot and not only will he not fall asleep with white noise and patting in the cot, he won’t do it next to me on the bed now either! My plan was to slowly reduce my presence and have him fall asleep with white noise and no me. The only way I can get him to fall asleep now is by rocking him (same for DH).

I can’t co-sleep with him all night because I don’t sleep well at all with him in bed. DH is the same and he’s working now (I’m on mat leave) so needs the sleep. Since he only naps for short amounts of time out of the sling, I usually can’t manage to get to sleep before he’s awake again so can’t catch up with my sleep.

I don’t know if the problem is due to the move from hammock to cot or if it’s the 4-month regression or a mix of both. Last night I started to get angry with him for the first time ever. I didn’t do anything apart from hold his arms so they couldn’t flap about, but I could feel myself losing my patience and I’m a really patient person usually. I know that if he senses me like that it will only make matters worse but I ended up begging him to sleep!

His average total hours of sleep every day is about 12/12.5. I know babies his age should be getting more sleep but I can’t get him to do it. He’s a happy baby and is growing well, so is it possible that he just needs less sleep than others?

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! I know the post is long but wanted to give as much info as possible. Any advice on how to get him to sleep longer at night would be greatly appreciated! Also, any tips on getting him to fall asleep in his cot would be fab!

Daytime sleep- try a bouncy chair at this age. The rhythmic movement (I used to bounce mine with a foot) helps her baby to sleep and also resettle if he stirs.

You're right he needs more sleep overall- over tiredness just makes everything to do with sleep harder. So reduce the awake time between his naps.

Aim for 60 minutes awake time, but no more than 90 minutes. This will mean more naps per day, so more overall sleep. Use a bouncer to resettle to try and lengthen naps. The more sleep he gets over the whole 24/48h, the easier it is for him to lengthen his naps. The idea is that you move to cot naps once naps are longer (more than 90m).

Your night time sleep, obviously you can't use a bouncer there. I'd suggest a dummy first off - fantastic aid for independent sleep.

Have you considered a sidecar cot? You can remove one side off most cots. Then wedge it to your bed. It means you can cuddle to settle baby but that baby is ultimately learning to go to sleep in the cot. Then over time you reduce the dependence on you.

The more daytime sleep baby gets, the less over tired he'll be so the easier nights will be. But it'll take some work to get baby used to settling in the cot. Your aim wants to be that baby goes to sleep where they stay asleep - so from fully awake to fully asleep in the cot.

Thank you so much for your answer! I really appreciate it

We’ve got a swing chair which he’s fallen asleep in about 3 times since we bought it 3 months ago. It’s a rocker chair as well (detachable from the electric swing mechanism) but we never really use that because it hasn’t got loads of movement. Could that be the same as a bouncy chair? Or should I consider investing in a bouncer?

He used to have super long naps in the pram when he was younger, he’d fall asleep as soon as we left the house and would only wake up once we got back, he’d sleep for about 4 hours like this if that’s how long we walked him for. Now it can take up to 50 mins to get him to sleep and then he’ll only nap for 20-30 mins. Lockdown hasn’t helped this, of course. We used to be able to get him to nap in his pram by walking him around the living room but that doesn’t work now at all.

RE the dummy, he won’t take one We’ve tried all different sizes, shapes, types etc and we’ve tried tapping it, pulling on it slightly if he does start to suck on it, all the techniques, but he gags and spits it out. He just prefers hands/ fingers (his or mine) or something soft like a teddy’s ears, even better if it’s got that crinkly plastic paper stuff inside. We bought him a dog pram toy about 10 days ago and the ears are wrecked already! He’s had white spots on his top gums since he was 2 months old, which we’ve been told are his teeth starting to show, so he slobbers A LOT! I think he prefers to suck on material partly because it absorbs some of his saliva. He’ll stick a muslin or his pram sheet on his hand and suck away for ages until it’s soaking. I’m scared that he’s going to start sucking his thumb or his tongue I’m scared of giving him a muslin for the night in case he suffocates on it.

I’ll try to get his awake time down to 60 mins. Should I give up on the white noise and patting and just concentrate on the chair? Or should I try the patting and then if that doesn’t work go to the chair? Do I use white noise with the chair? I’m scared of him resisting and then crying a lot because my husband WFH and makes a lot of calls so he can’t have a screaming baby in the background all the time. I can’t stand the baby screaming crying, it breaks my heart.

DS is sleeping much better tonight (he’s just woken from a 3-hour stretch!) but I won’t say that too loudly! I just feel like I have no clue what I’m doing because every night is so different now.

Thanks again and sorry for the million questions!

DS only slept 11 hours until 4 months. If he’s growing and developing normally it’s fine - solids / weaning will eventually help with sleep. Mine sleeps 16-17 hours now - most of it at night

Is he in a growbag? My ds slept well in one of those.

Could that be the same as a bouncy chair

I favour the z-frame bouncers like the image. Means I can sit on sofa (with a cuppa) with bouncer at my feet and bounce rhythmically with my foot. I'd remove the play arch and also never used the vibration mode.

Should I give up on the white noise and patting and just concentrate on the chair?
Do I use white noise with the chair?

Definately keep the white noise and patting etc for might time sleep - because night sleep needs to be in the cot (unless you cosleep) so extra help will be needed.

If you're white noise is portable and can be bought downstairs, I would use for all sleeps.

If you want to do cot naps with patting etc for daytime sleep, you certainly can do. The problem, as you've found, is they are harder work. Also more difficult to catch baby stirring before they wake, to resettle baby back to sleep and so lengthen the nap.

My bouncer suggestion is about making sleep as easy for baby as possible. So not making it difficult because of a perceived need to "Do it right", that just makes baby more and more over tired.

I’m scared of him resisting and then crying a lot... I can’t stand the baby screaming crying, it breaks my heart.

I see you're not going with a dummy, but this is the central reason to use a dummy - it stops the crying. Aside from feeding to sleep, everything else you do will involve crying. So maybe you (and your DH) need to readjust your expectations?

Sucking material, as well as being unhygienic, doesn't produce a seal in the mouth like a teat/nipple/dummy does. So baby is sucking in air as they suck a cloth - it's not the satisfying suck baby is after for comfort. Even hands/fingers aren't as good at creating that seal because of their small and ununiform shape.

Really, nothing compares to the value you get from a dummy to sooth and calm a crying baby in an independent way. Personally speaking I would put a lot more effort into getting dummy accepted.

My youngest DC didn't naturally take to a dummy, after her 3 older siblings took one without much effort. Her not having a dummy simply wasn't an option for me, so vital was it to my gentle, no-crying independent sleep philosophy.

I spent 7 weeks working on it before she "got it" and accepted the dummy. This involved every sleep time as well as constantly trying during awake playtime. Every single day, all the time. Eventually she got it (and stopped needing night feeds that week, now she could resettle with a dummy).

As you can tell - I'm biased. The dummy is, imo, the single best possible tool to gentle, independent sleep. But I get that large chunks of the population disagree with me on this.

Without a dummy tho - you and DH need realistic expectations regarding crying for naps and night time.

My breastfed baby had day naps in a swing, no dummy: 1hr in the morning, 1 hr in the evening, and 9 hours overnight with a single dream feed. Every baby is different - if yours is developing well there’s no need to fix anything yet.

@EmmaGrundyForPM We’re still experimenting what he needs to wear to bed in the cot. I tried a sleeping bag with him and he slept quite well but his arms were a bit cold. The sleeping bag manufacturer recommends short sleeve so I tried that first but I’ll try again with long sleeves.

@GrumpyHoonMain That’s good to hear that your DC sleeps more now! Can I ask how old your DC is now? How do you get your DC to do a dream feed? Once my DS is asleep, I can’t seem to get him to eat, do I need to wake him slightly?

@FATEdestiny Thank you again for all your suggestions! My chair is a bit different to that but I can still rock it with my foot so I’ll have a try tomorrow. I was thinking though, is it not going to make it more difficult to get him to nap in the cot if he’s so used to the rocking?

As for the dummy, both DH and I tried a lot since he was about 6 weeks old, but since he gagged and spat it out so much, we kind of gave up and have been trying only intermittently for a while now. I tried it with him this afternoon and although he didn’t really enjoy it and he spat it out, he did keep it in for a little bit, even though he wanted to get a couple of fingers in his mouth at the same time. To be completely honest, I really don’t like dummies - I don’t know why but I hate seeing them in my DS’s mouth. I’ve tried to get over myself and get him to take one but maybe it’s part of the reason why I haven’t managed to get him to take it - because I’m not convinced enough myself. I know it’s better for him and I’d rather have a dummy sucker than a thumb sucker so I’ll have to just try harder. I’ll be here with another gazillion questions when the time comes for him to give it up though if he does eventually take to it!

Do you think it is the 4-month sleep regression or is it the transition from hammock to cot that is causing this change in his night sleep?

I’ve just heard him stirring and groaning but he’s put himself back to sleep (30 mins after I put him down asleep after he fell asleep breastfeeding), is this a sign of him starting to be able to self settle by any chance?!

@BopaEli - He’s six months old now but sleep was probably sorted from 5-5.5 months. We basically started more of a routine as DH’s work ramped up - a bit of baby massage, a feed, then he slept for longer and longer stretches each day. Then when we started solids everything just clicked into place - he needs to sleep after meals now as he gets so excited on his little highchair. So we went from 11 to 13/14 or even 15 hours per night. The HV and pediatrician (we were referred due to his weight) said some babies just need less sleep at different points than others - if he’s developing and feeding well there’s no need to worry.

That’s reassuring to hear, thank you @GrumpyHoonMain ! He is growing very well (he’s quite tall/long at 69cm) and weight gain is no problem. We can see changes in his development every week, more or less. He’s such a happy baby as well, which is why I haven’t been worrying too much about how much he sleeps until this recent change in his sleep.

We live in Italy where there are no HVs that visit, unfortunately. We get an appointment with DS’s paediatrician every 8 weeks or so. The paediatrician was happy with his progress the last time he saw him. I’ve found people have a much more laissez-faire attitude about sleep out here and most help from the national health system is about breastfeeding (Italians and their food!). I’m kind of left on my own with regards to help with sleep, even because other mothers I know here have good sleepers that wake once overnight and nap for a couple of hours every afternoon. Family try to help as much as possible but it’s hard over video calls!

I love the help and support available on this website, its’s worth its weight in gold to me

Have you tried BIBS dummies? I also have a cat napper - she's 5 months old. Like your baby, she wakes up too soon. It's making her very tetchy and screechy because she's getting over tired in the day. Lately, I've noticed that she actually tries to keep herself awake. Her eyes start to close and she jolts herself awake! She does sleep well at night but actually, last night she was awake until 8.30 which is unusual because, again, she was keeping herself awake.

I do agree with @FATEdestiny that dummies have a lot of value and do promote independent settling.

DS slept 4, then 3.5 then 2 hours last night! I’m chuffed with that! He would have slept a bit longer if DH hadn’t woken him accidentally...

I have tried again with the dummies, with more conviction this time because I know it’s the right thing to do. He’s kept it in longer, but every time I think he’s got it and I stop tapping, he takes the dummy out to try to chew the hard part that’s meant be outside. It’s like he’s not really interested in sucking it but he wants to chew on it. Now I think of it, when he’s got his fingers in his mouth, he doesn’t really suck on them, he chews them, same with all his toys. He chewed my nipple the other day and I let out a yelp, he’s strong! I’ll have a look at BIBS dummies, thank you @Moomin8

The cat napping doesn’t really affect his personality, he’s always really happy and smiley.

Yesterday consisted in a lot of rocking and a lot of screaming, with very little napping. I think I need to look into getting a bouncer. I’ve seen that Baby Bjorn bouncers have great reviews so I might go for one of them, even if they’re on the pricey side.