4.5month old sleep help!!

[Sleepymama153]

Hi mamas,

I’m new to this and need a bit of advice/reassurance. My LB is now 4.5months. Hes always been a super alert baby and in many ways seems very advanced for his age and stage of development but sleep for us has always been a big issue!! As a newborn he wanted to be held constantly and would wake as soon as he was put down. I coped by co sleeping until he was around 7/8weeks when I worked hard to transition him back to his crib. This worked well and by about 10/11 weeks we were getting stretches of 4.5-5.5hours at the beginning of the night before he’d wake for a feed and settle back down again. However this seemed to last just a couple of weeks and he then went to waking almost hourly! I assumed this was the four month sleep regression which has also coincided with teething (now has two bottom teeth!). He ended up back in our bed again as otherwise neither of us were getting much sleep. I felt like things were starting to get better and he was showing signs of going back to sleep between sleep cycles. However, the last week or so he has been flighting going to sleep at bed time and nap times along with frequent waking!! We seem to have been in this phase for about 7 weeks now and I’m exhausted. Can anyone else relate to this, did it eventually pass for you? Any tips to make things better?

TIA from one very sleepy mama!

Following because my baby is exactly same and same age. I'm exhausted. He will only sleep for 30 mins unless held

@Jellyonaplate20 it’s so hard isn’t it! Is there anything you have tried? We are trying to commit to a napping routine to see if this helps night time sleep

It is the 4 month sleep regression when babies sleep cycles mature into a more adult pattern with intervals of light sleep. Unfortunately though most cannot yet resettle themselves when they wake from the light sleep every 1 to 2 hours.

Do what you need to do to survive it in the short term and when you get nearer 6 months you can start to teach your LO to resettle themselves by putting them to bed when awake and using one of the sleep training methods.

@Sleepymama153 yeah really hard. My baby had a better sleep last night.

I spoke with my health visitor today and she said not to worry about the sleep cycles. She said if baby is tired it will sleep. So today I've let him sleep when he wanted to and not get so worked up and he actually stretched to two 45 minute cycles.

@Sleepymama153 have you thought about removing one side off your cot and making it a sidecar cot?

It's a great interim that allows you to cuddle yup to baby from your bed, but teaches baby to sleep seperately because you can extract yourself once baby is alseep.