4 month sleep regression - your experiences!

[zastle]

So my LO has been going through the 4 month sleep regression since he was about 14 weeks old. He's now 20 weeks old and it doesn't seem to be any different. He was always a bad sleeper and has always taken short naps so I thought things couldn't possibly get worse. Spoiler alert - it can get SO much worse. He went from napping "only" 45-50 minutes to 20-30 minutes (on a good day...). Now I long for the days when he slept for a whole 45 min sleep cycle.
His night sleep had started improving from 9 weeks until the sleep regression hit us (a good 4-6 hours stretch then 2x 2 hour stretches). Not perfect but certainly an improvement from the newborn days. Ever since the sleep regression started he's been waking up every 2 hours or less. Last week he slept 4.5 hours one night and 6 hours the next so I thought things might finally be going back to normal! Nope. If anything, things only got worse. Last night in particular was one of the worst nights we've had since he was born. He was up every hour the entire night. And the worst part is he'll only settle when I hold him or nurse him - he only gets more frustrated when DH tries to help so I'm on my own.

I've been vigilant about his awake times, naps, bedtime routines and all that and I try to put him down drowsy but awake but most of the time that never works and I end up rocking him to sleep at night time and all naps. I just don't know what to do anymore. This is draining the life out of me.

What was the 4 month sleep regression like for you and your little ones? How long did it last? Did it pass on its own like a phase or did you have to teach your baby to self settle? If that's the case, how did you do that? Any information would be helpful as I'm at my breaking point!

I assume you mean controlled crying (leaving baby to cry but returning to reassure every few minutes). Cry It Out means just putting down and leaving, not returning at all.

Both are not recommended before 6 months old. Personally speaking, I would not consider this before 12 months old.

So not something that I would recommend.

Terrible idea at 4 months old. I urge you to reconsider.

@babysleepteacheruk what would you recommend instead?

I'm not the OP but I'm struggling with the four month regression too. A friend was actually told to do controlled crying by her HV and it's worked for her, personally I'm not sure I can bring myself to do it yet but objectively I am not sure a few nights of crying is worse than nobody (including the baby) getting any proper sleep all night long.

@BabySleepTeacherUK
Oh yes, I meant controlled crying, sorry. I'm not quite sold on the idea either to be frank. I will continue with gentler methods and hope that something works!

Good luck @zastle. It is so hard!

I agree with @BabySleepTeacherUK, 4 months is so young to be left to cry.

The 4 month regression is like hell on earth but it does end. Lasted about 8 weeks for us. Improved when I finally put him in his own room about 5.5 months. I'd have kept him in with us longer but we disturbed him too much and he was more capable of linking sleep cycles without the background noise of us shuffling around.

I got so stressed when it was happening. Became really hung up on wake times/how long he napped in his cot for/what he should be doing. He also breastfed to sleep and wouldn't settle for anyone but me. I was exhausted and at breaking point but it helped me to remind myself he wasn't just trying to be annoying, he was crying because something felt wrong. We did a mix of contact napping/bedsharing as well as me grabbing an extra hour or two in the morning when DP wasn't working. As soon as I chilled out it got better.

He is 7 months now and naps 3x a day, anything from 30 mins to 2 hours. Sleeps 10/11h at night with one or two feeds. Still breastfed/rocked to sleep and will still only settle for me but now I just go with the flow which I find makes it easier mentally. Hang in there, it gets better x

Hi op and everyone else struggling. This is bringing back bad memories but it will get better. The day mine turned 4 months the regression started. To think I’d never even heard of it. Breast fed. Went from sleeping through the night the odd time to taking hours to get to sleep in our arms ( we’re talking 2am+) and waking within minutes and the whole process beginning again. Only napped while in car or being pushed in pram, never in cot. Totally agree with @BabySleepTeacherUK about crutches. We were on our knees. One night co slept from about 2am onwards and managed to get about 4 hours in a row. ( wasn’t a great fan of cosleeping as worried about crushing baby). Next night thought stuff it will co sleep all night, baby never slept at all. That was the final straw. Came across the Ferber method ( Ferber is a paediatrician in America or Canada ) and I dread to think where we would be without it. It’s controlled crying, can’t remember the intervals off the top of my head but I’m sure it’s easily searchable and there’s a book. Within 3 nights we had a child who was only waking once or twice a night for feeds and going to sleep immediately once placed in cot. Amazingly naps fell into place too! I think it’s not recommended under 6 months ours was 7.5 months. We had a couple of mini regressions later but after a night of training all was fine again. If I had another and was in the same position I would co sleep until 6 months if that helped then do the training. Hope this helps someone x

[quote sunlightflower]@babysleepteacheruk what would you recommend instead?

I'm not the OP but I'm struggling with the four month regression too. A friend was actually told to do controlled crying by her HV and it's worked for her, personally I'm not sure I can bring myself to do it yet but objectively I am not sure a few nights of crying is worse than nobody (including the baby) getting any proper sleep all night long.[/quote]
The HV in my local authority (Nottinghamshire) do not recommend any methods involving leaving baby to cry unattended until after 12 months old.

For the OP, I've already mentioned several things that will help - re-establishing the dummy and teaching active sucking, shorten awake times as a way to reduce over tiredness, establish baby going to sleep where they stay asleep.

Difficult to advise the OP past that because she first needs her baby to not be over tired before any method of getting baby to sleep in the cot will work effectively. Nothing she tries now is likely to work for that, because baby is overall so exhausted. It's a bit like being in panic mode, not conducive to learning new skills (like going to sleep independantly).

So for the OP, at least 3 days (up to a week) of the mantra of: Any sleep, any how. Give every possible extra help to get baby sleeping as easily as possible, as often as possible, as long as possible. With no thoughts to long term habits yet (that comes next week, when baby is on a bit more sleep over 24h) just making sleep as easy as possible for baby.

At least 3 days on that (I call it Emergency Sleep Recovery Program), then look at how baby goes to sleep at bedtime. I'd probably recommend a form of well-managed pick up put down, with gradual withdrawal over the coming months.

For you sunlightflower, I'm not really sure what your situation is so it's difficult to advise. My most basic bits of advise would be:

• baby goes from (fully) awake to asleep where they will stay asleep. This is key and central to good long term sleep habits. It's the number 1 aim.
• Baby has frequent daytime naps with short awake times in order to reduce over tiredness, if waking a lot in the night and/or short daytime naps.
• frequent daytime feeds so less calories needed at night
• Unless you use a dummy (or feed to sleep) or are happy to take things very slowly and gently, expect a lot of crying. You will be there comforting baby, but still they'll be lots of crying. You need the resilience to deal with that. I mention this because I know what it's like to be an exhausted mum and an exhausted mum doesn't have great reserves of resilience. But it's needed.

Hello everyone, I've been meaning to post a quick update for the past couple of days but never had a minute to myself. Thank you all for sharing your experiences and well wishes!

I followed @BabySleepTeacherUK 's advice and shortened his awake times. Incidentally I also downloaded the Huckleberry app and their suggested "Sweet Spot" awake times are closer to what BabySleepTeacherUK suggested!

The first day was tough, he resisted his naps when I tried to put him down sooner than I usually do. The next few days were much easier. His naps are still very short though so either I'm doing something wrong, he needs more time to adjust, or he just can't seem to link sleep cycles during the day. As a result of all this extra time, we've added a 5th nap to a couple of the previous days as bedtime was too far from his 4th nap.

He sleeps quicker at bedtime now but still wakes up a lot after his initial long stretch of sleep (we've had anything between 2.5 to 6 hours these past 3 weeks) stretch. It's always: long stretch, 2 or 3 hours, then up every hour until he's finally up for the day.

As for sleep training - we haven't really started anything or done anything different yet. I have been doing a high needs baby, which my son definitely is. Shush pat doesn't work, he still insists on being rocked to sleep (or breastfed during night wakeups), and he thinks pick up/put down is playtime.

Hi, I could really use some help.
My daughter who is nearly 5 months old now is constantly kicking her crib during the night which is waking me up all the time. I am barely getting any sleep and I don’t know what to do.
I feel like pulling my hair out and crying because of the little sleep I get.

She does this thing where she uses her legs to move her body towards the top of the crib and uses her neck to lift her body, then her neck tends to be so far arched back I’m afraid she’s going to hurt herself especially while I’m alseep.

She has been like this for a long time now where as before she used to sleep about 12 hours from bedtime to the next day.
I honestly don’t know what to do to help her sleep,

It’s literally killing me and then I can’t even sleep during the day when she has a nap which makes it much worse. I’m only having about 3 hours sleep a night.

Has anyone got any advice for me or has experienced this themselves?
How long did yours do this for? Please say it does go eventually and hopefully soon

Hi @glou26
Just to clarify, does your daughter sleep through the night despite the kicking? Or is she waking herself up?
If she's still sleeping well, have you thought of moving her to her own room so you could get some sleep? If it's not too loud maybe it won't bother you through the baby monitor.

As for her neck arching - I'm no expert but I'm sure if it hurts her she wouldn't be doing it!

Hope this helps xx

Hi @zastle reading this old thread for inspiration on how to navigate the 4 month sleep regression. When / how did it end for you??

From personal experience, the key to “good” sleep with babies is that they learn to get themselves to sleep without needing to feed to sleep. So I try to get mine to fall asleep themselves from the beginning, but in reality it only works for one or two naps a day at the start and then gradually increases. I choose the naps when they are most settled (so mainly morning naps to start with) and then just feed/rock to sleep more as the day goes on.

I don’t leave them to cry though- I just don’t immediately pick them up if they are moving around or making grizzling noises. Appreciate I may have been lucky to have babies who find it relatively easy to get themselves to sleep (so far at least!!), but I have found that friends who always feed to sleep are generally the ones that have sleep problems later on.

So I would aim for once a day of them getting themselves to sleep - even if that means rocking rather than feeding to sleep (as it’s easier to gradually reduce the rocking over time than it is to stop feeding) and build up from there

Getting to sleep isn’t the problem, it’s staying asleep! He’s a champ at falling asleep at the start of the night, and for 2 naps a day, it’s frequent waking in the night that we’re battling with ...

@zastle going through the same thing and just wondered how it all worked out in the end? How long did it last ?