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?

Hi everyone - it’s so nice to know we’re not alone!

We’re limping on here. DD is 6 months today and in many ways loads of fun now (dragging herself about, very sociable) but nights are still very variable. We’ve started getting chunks of 2 or 3 hours, very occasionally 4, which is encouraging in terms of the linking cycles thing. But we’re still on at least two huge feeds overnight (I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get her to take those calories in the daytime, she does 2 or 3 minutes every 2 or 3 hours) as well as multiple shush pats and bounces. The last few nights have been a complete ordeal for some reason, waking up repeatedly after just 10/20 minutes, and we had a couple of 4/5am starts to the day, too. Currently feeling pretty mad... Wondering if we need an earlier bedtime but it’s such a rush to make dinner and eat, and I still want to be asleep almost as soon as she is because I never know what’s ahead!

I’m still holding her for naps and having to work pretty hard for more than 30 minutes - no sign of them lengthening or getting any easier to come by. Like you, @SKA86, we’re often way down on the number of hours she’s supposed to be getting. Those days are pretty stressful.

We’re considering getting a ‘professional’ in too, @Etherealhedgehog. Which sleep consultant are you seeing?

@BerthaYoung it's called Happy Little Dreamers - on recommendation of a friend of a friend. She does a free initial short phone call which we found very useful and on that basis have decided to go with her. God I really hope it works! Apart from anything else, I suddenly feel like the clock is REALLY ticking on my return to work and in addition to desperately needing night sleep to improve, we also need her napping in the cot and taking bottles before DP takes over for a couple of months... Logically I feel like we should sort night sleep, then naps, then tackle the bottle (as her daytime feeding schedule is currently all messed up due to taking naps on the boob) but I suspect that will leave us with about a week to do the weaning and/or going cold turkey. But hey ho - am trying not to over-think it. And as you say, we're having so much more fun with her now she's a bit older - 6-7 months feels like a very jolly stage (in the daytime!). Good luck with it, will be interested to hear your experiences if you decide to go the consultant route.

I hope it ends early for you too. My little one has his first tooth coming through and it's just taken 2 hrs to get him down for the night. He kept waking after 5 mins squirming and crying and touching the tooth. Is that normal?

In case you might find it helpful, I'm following a sleep consultant, Rosey Davidson, on Instagram. She has a business called Just Chill Sleep, and she sells courses online. However she is really good in that she has lots of free online resources too on her website and loads of helpful advice on Her Instagram account. Check her out too, there's actually some things on there which I found helpful.

One thing she criticises is the over emphasis on over-tiredness, where in fact in older babies this just isn't the case. This is why so many of us are obsessed with putting a baby down for a nap too early to avoid them being overtired and in fact they don't sleep well because they're not tired enough! I made this mistake for so long!

Her IG account is called just chill mama (underscore between all words... can't type this for some reason!)

@SKA86 it's funny you mention that - just been filling out the pre-questionnaire for our sleep consultant appointment (I had SO much to say, it's like everything I ever wanted to babble at my half-asleep partner all just brain-farted onto the page ) and one thing I noted is that even on the days when she's had a crazy long wake window before bed (anyone else struggling with the transition from three to two naps?) it's not necessarily any harder to get her down, sometimes even easier. I have come to the conclusion that it's not too much of an issue for us. But then she is still fed to sleep, I guess if I was expecting her to self-settle it might be different...

Also, @LGBirmingham yes! We totally had nights like this around the first tooth coming in. There were a handful of nights where it felt like I basically couldn't put her down... she would wake up straight away when I did, or after 20 mins. Lots of writhing around and waking herself up banging her head on the cot. Thank god it did not become a regular thing. Hopefully that tooth will pop all the way through and then you'll get a bit of a break!

I'm very glad I found this thread. It's been five weeks of sleep hell with my nearly 5 month old. Are any of you on a sleep schedule? We tried the Little Ones sleep programme, which worked for a while but now naps are no longer than 30 minutes I ended up spending a lot of my time in a dark room. Also we transitioned naps into the big cot and I can't seem to nail the transfer from arms to cot. Does anyone have any tips? I know she needs to self settle but it feels impossible as we feed to sleep and she screams if anything else happens.

@IE00 my little one was the same and only started to improve when he was 6 months, so don't lose hope!

I found that he liked to sleep on his side rather than on his back, so started putting him down on his side. Then this slowly started becoming sleeping on his front as he naturally started sleeping like this himself which helped massively.

I know you're not supposed to put them in their front until they can flip both ways themselves so make sure you spend time practising in the day. Some babies just don't like sleeping on their back especially if they are used to being held or rocked. Might be worth a try

@Etherealhedgehog this is happening for us. Must have resettled 3 or 4 times before getting him down for him to just sleep and hour. Nightmare! How long did it last for?

@IE00 the sleep regression just ended naturally for us but it started when he was only 13 weeks so he's only 5 months but through it now. Although I did give up on cot naps entirely during that time so I'm not best placed to advise on that but with the regression I found it best to adopt a faith based approach that it would eventually improve.

@LGBirmingham it wasn't really a phase for us (thank god), more like random one-off nights. From what I recall, the first time it happened it was two nights in a row and since then it's happened maybe once. I even posted a desperate thread the first time, looking for some solidarity, because I was so WTF!! www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/4232165-Anyone-had-a-night-like-this

Though to be clear, this came in the middle of generally terrible sleep anyway, so the 'improvement' after a couple of nights was a return to wake-ups every 90 mins or so, but much easier to settle. I never did work out what caused it either - the hoped for tooth did not appear that time!

Really hope it's equally short lived for you!

@ie00 I read somewhere that transferring them asleep at naptime is much harder than nighttime and that was always my experience so I gave up trying long ago, but then it seems some people do manage so may be worth persisting! She still naps on me but now that we're weaning I could REALLY use the time. The plan was always to try and get her self-settling for naps once we'd nailed that for bedtime - still the plan I guess, just not there yet (god, I hope soon!)

Oh lord I was hoping for someone to say they had conquered but I'm glad it's not just me taking the path of least resistance.

@SKA86 thank you for the tip. She can't roll over from her front so I can't put her on her front, but I will try the side and slowly rolling her onto her front.

@LGBirmingham you said you gave up on cot naps, what did you do then? Did you have a sleep schedule? I am suspicious that it's our schedule that's not helping.

@Etherealhedgehog you said you are almost there. What does that look like? You give me hope! My husband tried to rock her to sleep these last few nights and she cried and cried, no sleep. It's so heartbreaking. I also feel like only the boob will suffice and therefore only I will suffice. I get no break at all!

@IE00 he naps on my lap in an arm chair and I sometimes have a snooze too. Totally against all guidance I know but we're both less stressed doing this. We used to get good naps in the carrier/ pushchair on walks too but those are less reliable atm as he's more easily distracted by unexpected noise than he used to be. Sometimes those naps are still good but sometimes he wakes after 30 or 40 mins. He can do 2 hrs in my lap though.

@Etherealhedgehog we had a terrible night with the teething then an ok one then a terrible one again last night. I'm hoping it is the tooth causing it and not a return to the regression. I feel kind of scared because I'm really not ready to go back there.

Also @Etherealhedgehog please let us know how you get on with the sleep consultant

@IE00 sorry didn't answer your question fully. I just follow awake windows. So he's on 3 naps a day at the moment but the timings of those vary depending on how the day pans out.

@ie00 sorry that read wrong. We are very far from there! But have a call with a sleep consultant on Monday and will hopefully start some kind of sleep training with her this week. Probably something like gradual retreat, based on our initial discussion. Like you, we found that trying to get her to sleep any way other than boob resulted in lots of tears so figured we might as well go the whole hog and sleep train her to self-settle. I'm sure she won't tell us anything we couldn't figure out online but knowing my DP and I, I think we need someone holding our hands and keeping us honest to get through it, and after four months of this, we REALLY need to get through it.

Like @LGBirmingham, I currently have her nap on my lap - I use wireless headphones and watch A LOT of Netflix on my phone. Third nap is generally in the pram, if it happens, but she only rarely connects sleep cycles in there so a pram nap is always a short one. And yep, our schedule is based on wake windows also, though we're in the 3-2 nap transition and also her first wake window is usually too long while I have a lie-in and then a shower, so it's a bit of a mess tbh.

@lgbirmingham urgh, that sounds hard. Big fingers crossed it's just some bad nights with teething and not the next sleep regression rearing its ugly head. Will definitely update after we've started the sleep training

@Etherealhedgehog how did the sleep consultant go? We are day 2 into sleep training and it's going very well. My LG is self settling at night it's unbelievable. No more suckling on my boob for 2 hours straight! Now the only issue is my boobs are so sore at nighttime haha because she isn't feeding. Hope you've managed to get help.

@IE00 that's great to hear! Now you I've started sleep training, keep at it and don't give up even if you have some bad nights. It's amazing how quickly babies adjust to new sleep habits.

Well done to all parents who have tried so hard. Even if it doesn't work, just keep going and one day baby will learn to sleep well

[quote SKA86]@IE00 that's great to hear! Now you I've started sleep training, keep at it and don't give up even if you have some bad nights. It's amazing how quickly babies adjust to new sleep habits.

Well done to all parents who have tried so hard. Even if it doesn't work, just keep going and one day baby will learn to sleep well [/quote]
That's supposed to read YOU'VE started sleep training lol

@IE00 what sleep training are you doing out of interest? Is it leading to less wake ups or just helping with the first settling?

Since the teeth, now two of them, we've not had great sleep again. We're on 4-6 get ups and 3 hour stretches of sleep have become rare again. It's very frustrating and making me doubt if we had actually got through the regression or if we just had a blip of a few weeks of better sleep? Did this happen to anyone else? He's also trying desperately hard to crawl so I'm wondering if this could be a factor?

@LGBirmingham that is exactly how it was for us - I would say that sleep gradually got better until she was just shy of 7 months and then it got worse again - I'm sure due to a combination of teething and learning to crawl, plus I think she developed object permanence and suddenly started to be really bothered by not waking up how she went to sleep. Probably also some separation anxiety in the mix. I think it was basically the 8 month sleep regression come early - from what I understand it's a combination of those sorts of things. So yeah, it was really up and down for months but increasingly more down recently.

We started sleep training on Friday using something along the lines of the gradual retreat method (using plan provided by our sleep consultant). Keeping fingers very crossed, it's going brilliantly so far. The self-settling seems to have resulted in an immediate reduction in night wakings (just one a night from night one, down from five - I think she's only waking when she's actually hungry now). And what really surprised me - we've also managed to get her to settle for naps also. Yesterday she only managed one sleep cycle per nap but as I type she has been asleep for over an hour...my partner and I have no idea what to do with ourselves! (Almost literally, because the flat is tiny and we are petrified of making any noise that might wake her up). From discussion with the sleep consultant I think we have had a particularly easy time of it (so far/fingers crossed) - longest she took to settle was 35 mins on night one and otherwise much less, so I certainly wouldn't guarantee that all babies would react the same - they're all different etc. But for us, this was definitely the right decision.

Also worth noting that in the weeks before we started I was definitely seeing signs that she wanted to start falling asleep a different way - particularly at bedtime (when I used to feed her to sleep) she would be rubbing her eyes and writhing around while feeding and seemed really frustrated that it wasn't getting her to sleep fast enough. But then, she had also got herself back to sleep from awake in the middle of the night quite a few times when she was younger, so I think she already had pretty good capability to get herself to sleep, it was just the feeding to sleep that was messing things up. But I think if I had tried to just stop cold turkey without a concrete plan/method it would not have worked well.

@LGBirmingham we used Ferber. After 2 nights she was sleeping 7-9 hours straight, On the third night no crying! After the fifth day she was also sleeping for 2 hours in her lunchtime nap. Message me if you want more details.

@Etherealhedgehog my son is only just 5 months so surely we can't be having the 8th month regression early!?

How have you handled all the crying? 35 mins is quite a long time for that? Or does it not involve too much crying? My son has on the odd occasion put himself back to sleep too so it is possible. It's interesting what you say about waking only when hungry. When he was only waking 3 times for those few weeks each time he had a really big feed where as last night it was 10 mins or so again and clearly just using it to get back to sleep. It's very frustrating.

@IE00 how old is your child? I'm very reluctant to do a crying method but it might be that I crack at some point and change my mind. Sleep deprivation is no fun is it?