4 month sleep regression support group

[crazychemist]

Hi All,

Anyone want to join me for mutual handholding through 4 month sleep regression?

I’ve got twin boys, and am finding it quite tough at the moment. Long naps are completely a thing of the past, 45 mins tops. Waking every 2 hours at night. Classic 4 month sleep regression stuff.

I’m doing my best to get the majority of naps in their (our) room with swaddle, white noise, as dark as I can get it. They aren’t really self settling at the moment - I’ve been giving them a dummy because otherwise they disturb each other before they nod off. They also have a feed very close to going to sleep to get them nice and drowsy, but there’s at least a 5 minute gap between feed and sleep except at bedtime (which is mayhem due to overtiredness).

How are you finding it? What have you tried so far?

Morning all! Nice to hear your update @TangBloodyFastic

We’re having a break from trying to get sleep sorted this week. DD came back from preschool with a stinking cold and kept waking upscreaming in the night because she was having nightmares that a monster was sitting on her face (presumably because her nose was blocked). The twins have now caught it. They were up every 40 minutes last night.... and they staggered it so I was up every 20 minutes! Brought them into bed with me (which usually isn’t a good idea, we stopped cosleeping because they were disturbing each other) and stuck on on each side so I could just roll and let one latch on, then swap when the other woke. Really hope the cold passes soon!!!!!

@Booksandtea84 he slept better! He went down about 8pm, woke at 11pm so I made a bottle which he had 2oz of then slept until about 3 with only a few wake ups but he soon went to sleep after giving him his dummy and putting our hand on him. I felt less guilty about whether he needed a feed too so was less stressed. Made another bottle at 3 and he only had half an oz.

Think because I'm not 100% confident what I'm doing is right makes the situation worse but after your advice I do feel like I'm gaining a bit more control so thank you!

@crazychemist hat off to you, I don't know how you do it! I'm with just the one!
Hope the colds pass quickly!!

Does anyone have any suggestions for wake ups at same time every night? Is there something I can do to help her get past this "habit"?
3am every morning and then won't really go back down after this wake up. Comfort feeds/restless/wakes after 15 mins ish. This continues until we get up.

Also - does anyone know if trying to increase milk intake through the day helps them get through the night with less feeds? I try and get as much into her as possible on the night feeds but she's so tired it's a battle to keep her awake and even if I do manage it doesn't seem to extend her sleep

@FirstTimeMumDec2020 great, it really does sound as if he's not hungry. Totally get the confidence thing, im the same and sure ill be wasting a lot of bottles in the next few weeks ha!

@TangBloodyFastic trying this today as she only had one bottle at 2am and next one at 7.15am! Normally has two big bottles overnight and ends up drinking smaller bottles in the day.
This morning, she had two 5oz bottles at 7.15am and 10.15am, normally I struggle to get more than 3oz down her so it's looking good... but babies have their own schedule so God knows if it'll make a difference at night. Will report back!

@TangBloodyFastic there's this thing I think is called scheduled awakenings that I've read about. Where if a baby wakes at the same time always you wake them like half an hour earlier and it's supposed to help fade it out. I think that's why I dream feed is so popular because it basically does that? We used to have a dream feed before it all turned chaotic. We can't try the scheduled awakenings unfortunately as our wakeups are totally random!

@TangBloodyFastic I tried increasing daytime feeds by switching from a 4 hourly feed to 3 and dedicating much longer to feeding sessions especially when he was distracted. I did this for a few days but unfortunately it didn't make any difference to the number of wake ups or the number of feedings during the night.

I read somewhere that at this age it's common for babies to make up for the shorter distracted feeding during the day but feeding more and more often at night.

We were up several times again last night but I think I've figured out that only 2 of the times are due to genuine hunger (normally 3/4hrs apart) as he wakes crying and is impossible to settle without feeding whereas the other times he wakes although he's fussing I can usually get him to settle again with rocking etc.

I also worry about whether I should be feeding to sleep, rocking etc but I have taken comfort from a few articles online that say that the 4mth regression is especially tough and you should just do whatever seems to work for you & baby day to day and all the other stuff can be worked out later when they hopefully pass through this phase. Not always easy to follow this advice when sleep deprived and desperate for solutions but it has made me worry a bit less and try to just take one day (and awful night) at a time.

@TangBloodyFastic this isn't really advice as such, but just to say that we used to have mornings like that (though the initial wake up time was variable) and it does seem to have very gradually improved over time, though daylight savings was a big part of shifting it to a slightly more reasonable hour. But even without that it has got better, in that I can now fairly often put her down as late as 4.30 and she might sleep another hour or so in her cot - never used to be the case.

With regards to feedings, I came into this intending to only feed every three hours at night but quickly gave up as it was the only way to settle her. But we've had a few better nights recently where she's had far fewer wake ups with no changes to daytime feeds, so I agree with @spendingagain - most of the wake-ups are not hunger related, so as she gets better at independently transitioning between sleep cycles (and when she's not teething ) she wakes up less often despite all those night feeds just a few days ago. Long-winded way of saying, I think if you can settle most wake-ups without feeding that's probably a useful thing but don't sweat it too much because lots of five minute half asleep feeds is probably not adding enough calories to make a big difference once they're in a position to sleep better for whatever reason

Thanks for the replies it seems the overall consensus is it makes no difference. She seems to have little and often (reflux played a big part in this sadly) so I guess she is doing the same through the night as she does in the day. Maybe now she's on medication this will change/improve

@Booksandtea84 they're good substantial feeds, if it pushes her long enough so she's hungry for the next one I think you're onto a winner there!!

@LGBirmingham I'd be interested to try the dream feed before she wakes but I'm just so sleep deprived I can't bring myself to wake her 🙈 I'm trying to squeeze in every last minute so all my go to options at the moment are the easiest ones. Maybe this is where I'm going wrong and sleep deprivation is making me "lazy"??

@spendingagain that last paragraph 🙌🏻🙌🏻 i feel like that's exactly what I'm doing. Each night is another dreadful night and another slog to get through the following day. I wake up thinking "tonight might be the night" and I'm always frustrated when I hear her stirring and look at the clock and see it's 3am for the 14th million time in a row 🤦🏻‍♀️😂

@Etherealhedgehog i really hope she decides soon to push her wake up time. I'd give anything at the moment for even 4am!
Last night I fed/rocked back to sleep from 3am. Every time I put her back down she was wide eyed 10 minutes later
When I put her down at bedtime she does down no issue. What is it that makes 3/4am so different, why can I not get her to sleep and stay asleep??? Infuriating when I know she can do it but just not the latter half of the night 🙄

@TangBloodyFastic From what I've read they sleep most deeply in the first few hours of the night. By 3/4am their melatonin levels have dropped a lot so they sleep more lightly and wake more often. No solutions but I found it interesting to know that there is a difference between bedtime & 4am, they aren't just being awkward and you're not imagining it!

Frankly I think we’re all superheroes. Well done everyone. I really feel for those of you suffering early morning wake-ups. The days are long enough as it is...!

I am feeling very bleary eyed and fuzzy headed this morning after being up 11:30pm-2am on a miserable cycle of feeding, putting her down, trying to get back to sleep and barely managing it before she woke again. And then hourly wake ups after that. Including a bad dream about DD herself which cost me at least 15 precious minutes of sleep and seems like a rather unnecessary intervention by my subconscious mind... 😫 I understand why a baby would wake on transfer, or after a sleep cycle, but why sleep 7 or 20 minutes and then wake up?! I guess she must be in light sleep at that point. When will this end?! @spendingagain I’ve seen some of the same reassurance about not changing anything at this stage and dealing with whatever issues remain when you’re through the ‘regression’, which helps. But then I’ve also seen articles saying that you won’t ever get ‘through’ it unless you change how they’re falling asleep, so they feel safe enough to link cycles. And then there are people who change nothing and sleep improves, and those whose babies do fall asleep independently and still can’t link cycles. I find it so hard to know what to think, or to do. But like @TangBloodyFastic said, I tend (I think very reasonably!) to do whatever seems easiest in the moment because I am So. Bloody. Tired.

For now I’m focusing on extending the first two naps of the day, and have given up trying to put her down for them - we’ll deal with bedtime first, and for now I’m more concerned that she gets as much sleep as possible rather than worrying about how it happens. Pram and sling naps seem to have disappeared again, making for some unpleasant walks, absurdly long awake times, and late emergency naps when we finally get home.

In other news, after one of those late naps DD was too awake to feed properly at bedtime so I just let her potter about on the bed and she rolled onto her tummy, so I laid down next to her and scratched her head and...she fell asleep! Obviously all attempts to replicate this since have proven futile - she pretends not to know how to roll, and scorns my tickles, and I’m left scratching my own head... 🤔 Still, another interesting development in the sleep saga!

Still every hour or every 2 if I'm lucky here.

I'm so tired.

Hey ladies, do you mind if I join? My twins are 20 weeks on Monday (14 weeks corrected) and we have been going through this hell for the last 2 weeks now. @crazychemist I think we spoke on here when we were both pregnant?

They have been waking every 45 mins (not always at the same time) at night and it's just brutal torture. I feel like I'm dying 😩😂

Hi @MilsCookie, yes we did! My twins are 23 weeks now (18 weeks adjusted, which is mostly how I think of them as it’s a much better fit for their size/development). So a couple of weeks into/further through the hell! With you on the brutal torture front. I’m so foggy during the day, my 4 yo gets hardly any attention at all. I’m going to be so relieved when she goes back to preschool and I might be able to get a 30 minute nap with the boys.

I’ve totally given up on any idea of self-settling practice until the holidays end. It’s just too much for me right now. While the twins have this cold I will take ANY method that gets them to sleep, so have completely reverted to feeding them to sleep. Survival mode only, progress can wait.

@BerthaYoung ahhh, the mysterious disappearing roll. My DD rolled, and then didn’t for another 4 months! My twins are also in this stage, they have both rolled, one seemed very good at it, but now they seem to have both forgotten how to do it. Don’t know if it counts as a met milestone if they forget it.

I’ve given up on extending cot naps. The only way we are getting long naps at the moment is in the pram, and I’m taking it. The time to spend with my DD or getting some much needed housework done is more valuable than the sleep training right now. Sod it all.

@OhToBeASeahorse oh I hear ya. I'm so exhausted

I just don't understand how some nights he can sleep for 2 or 3 hour stretches and other nights he's up constantly! Maybe he's in some discomfort or pain that he can't resettle.

I just don't know. I'm mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. Nap times are so hard too as getting him to sleep is a massive task and he won't sleep for longer than 45 minutes. It's so challenging!!

@SKA86 three stretches seem to have totally disappeared for us now. Think he's actually getting worse. We seem to get 1hr15 or 50 mins generally. I set a timer so I know! Did anyone else get worse before getting better?

@LGBirmingham I literally had 2 whole weeks of 45 min to hourly wake ups, and I seriously was in a very low place that DH had to take over completely for 2 nights as I was just broken. However since then we've had a few good nights (by good, I mean not hourly wake ups but waking up about 3 times which is great, but he still takes ages to resettle).

I do think things get better and then worse, and then better and then worse again (sorry) but those good nights really do take the edge off the exhaustion temporarily so you can think straight.

You will definitely have better nights coming!

@SKA86 waking up 3 times sounds heavenly. That was what we had when he was 'sleeping well' we had at least one block of 2 hrs sleep last night which felt amazing. Shows how bad it had got really.

@SKA86 How long has it been going on foe you now? We're reaching the end of our 4th week and he's 17 weeks old today.

@BerthaYoung I wonder if her sleep will improve now she's learnt to roll over? My son has weirdly learnt to stand up. Can't roll or sit up though. Unfortunately it's not lead to any sleep improvements though.

@LGBirmingham it's been well over 2.5 months for us. Last night was a really bad night and now he's not settling for his nap either

@SKA86 Oh gosh you poor thing! Has your baby reach a lot of milestones in that time?

@SKA86 I totally gave up on cot naps a while ago because he'd only sleep for such a short time. I just let him sleep on my lap or out on a walk. I figured he will only naps for the first couple of years of life so it's not creating a permanent problem for myself. Heaven knows what will happen when he goes to nursery, but the nurseries I've spoken to say that peer pressure generally gets the children napping as they just fit in with what everyone else does.

I'm sure you're doing a great job by the way. It's so hard functioning on hardly any sleep isn't it?

@LGBirmingham I'm just really frustrated as I really thought I was making progress with his naps, but since yesterday he's just not settling and I've had to hold him to sleep and then transfer to cot. Today he kept turning over on his front and crying, so I had to keep turning him back, only for his to turn on his front again and dribbling all over the mattress!

Honestly feel like it's 1 step forward and 2 back. When will this ever get better?

@LGBirmingham We had a couple of nights where she was awake (or went down for about 3 minutes at a time) for an hour and a half, and just after that she got more confident with rolling front to back. Apparently while they’re on the cusp of some developmental thing, especially gross motor developments, it can happen that they wake for the duration of a whole sleep cycle - just like if as adults we’re working on some big project and the brain starts going at 100mph in the middle of the night.

We’ve had some slight improvement in the last week (22 weeks old) with successfully extending most morning and lunchtime naps to an hour/an hour and a half (I’m holding her and bouncing her - it’s not a miracle!) giving us a three nap day, and then getting a three-hour stretch on several nights. Weirdly I feel more tired though. Last night I fell asleep while jiggling her in the bedside cot, with my arm under her legs, and woke up 2 hours later 🙈 I’m not having masses of success re-settling in the cot over night - things (like the side-lying shush pat) seem to work a couple of times and then she gets wise to it and resists! But at least with a longer stretch at some point we’re down to 3 or 4 feeds (plus subsequent and occasional extra resettling) instead of the three full weeks of 6+ 😳 Long may it last... And may this bring hope to those of you currently struggling with hourly wake-ups or worse. DH is still holding her for the first stretch so I have some protected sleep though. We’re going to have to fix this at some point. I’d imagined that at the magic 6 months mark we’d suddenly be able to leave her to sleep alone while we go downstairs for dinner. Ha! Instead it looks like I’m going to be eating at breakneck speed whilst jiggling a baby and going to bed at 7pm forevermore...

@crazychemist Hope the twins have got through their cold? It sounds very sensible to prioritise rest however possible in those circumstances!

@SKA86 You sound exhausted 💐 I don’t have any advice but I do think it’s significant that DS is just starting to roll. His little brain and body must be so busy - his world is literally turning upside down! I read in Philippa Perry’s book that babies and children are at their most frustrated just before they master something new. It’s always darkest before the dawn... It WILL get better! I’m just sorry no one can promise when. Are you weaning now too? There’s so many things happening around 6 months, it’s so tough!