4 month sleep regression..what fresh hell is this?! Help please!

[SJMACC]

My baby is 16 weeks and for the past week and a half seems to be in the throes of the 4 month sleep regression.
DS has never been a fantastic sleep and me and DH are cumulatively very sleep deprived, however DS recently started doing stretches of 5 hours, then 2 x 2 then 1 and 45 mins and we could both
Cope with that.
DS however is currently waking after 45 mins and won’t be put down in his next to me unless held for 20 mins first, only to wake 25 mins later.
He’s bf and fed to sleep but to help him go between sleep cycles we have tried a dummy, he just spits it out and cries and Dh has tried to settle him, he managed it but DS still woke up after 45 mins. I’ve tried singing, the shush pat, hand on tummy with gentle reassurance- nothing is working, he just cries!
I have started co sleeping because he’s too little to be crying for any length of time and just to get some semblance of
Sleep but I’m really not comfortable with it, my boobs are on the larger side and while he latches on in the middle of the night,
He tends to use them as a pillow- I’m really worried about his face getting stuck under them, he also gulps
Milk and I woke up tonight to him choking because he had gulped during feeding so I haven’t been back to sleep since as I’m too worried about him feeding when I’m asleep.
When we do co sleep, both me and DH don’t get a good night sleep either-
I’m getting migraines from lack of sleep and have thrown up a few times in the past few weeks as a side effect, DH has nearly crashed his car twice due to tiredness. We live in a one bed flat so not like DH can go in a spare room and he’s too tall to sleep on the sofa.

Please tell me this ends? Is there anything we can do to help Ds transition from
One sleep cycle to the next without feeding to sleep? Also how did you manage to transition from co sleeping? Any advice would be very very much appreciated

I'm afraid I don't have much advice, but just wanted to bump this for you as I know how hard it is.

With my first DC the 4 month sleep regression almost broke me and we also started co sleeping! We didn't stop until he was 2 and I did gradual retreat which your baby is probably too young for.

With DC2 I co slept from the beginning. Now I have DC3 and I am dreading the 4 month regression as I really don't want to co sleep again but I have no idea how to get through it otherwise. Hopefully someone with some good advice will come along soon!

DD was like this.
I would feed her to sleep and then put her back in the cot, feet touching the cot mattress first, then bum, back and head, then kept my hand on her chest for 10 seconds, kept her asleep.

At 6 months she still was waking every 60 mins and my mental health was being majorly affected so I decided to sleep train her with positive results.

Ah thankyou @2gd2btruethere is some comfort in knowing I’m not alone! It really is the hardest thing -hoping you will find some resolution too! X

Thanks @MonkeyPuddle what sleep training did you use? How did you manage to cope for 2 months? I’m not sure how much I have left In the tank!

Hi OP

My baby is 14 weeks and I have been wondering if there will be a regression. She has the exact same sleeping pattern as your DS and I feed her to sleep as well she's EBF

Almost 4 weeks ago we had 6 nights in a row where she was waking every hour or less. Anyway she turned out to be poorly and had a UTI and possibly something else, we were in hospital for two nights and she had two weeks antibiotics by drip.. I had to take her into hospital every day.

Anyway, I am a FTM and no expert, but I thought she was going through a sleep regression... maybe your son isn't well? Have you taken his temp? Perhaps go to the doctors and speak to them. Baby needs to sleep at some point and if he's not sleeping there may be a bigger reason, that's what I've learnt anyway.

nothing is working, he just cries!

This is why a dummy is essential if you're wanting baby to sleep independently without any crying.

Sucking is nature's way to calm and sooth baby to sleep. It is also physically impossible to cry at the same time as sucking.

So feeding to sleep is one no-cry way to get baby sleeping. But as you've found, this is making sleep dependant on you, not independant. It is poor sleep hygiene to move baby once already asleep which is why feeding to sleep leads to cosleeping.

If you want independant sleep then baby needs to go from being awake to asleep in the cot. Putting an already asleep baby down will never work long term. If baby is to sleep in the cot, he needs to go to sleep in there.

So if you want baby going to sleep in the cot, I would focus heavily on getting the dumny accepted and used consistantly.

If you have middle class snobbish issues with dumny use and don't want to do this, then you have to accept independant sleep will involve crying. No if's about it, there will be crying and probably lots of it.

Back to the sentence I picked out at the top of this post - it's not about nothing working. If you are using the fact baby is crying yo sleep as a mark of something not working, then you're not getting it. If baby isn't sucking, he WILL cry (a lot). That doesn't mean what you're doing isn't working or isn't going to work. If just means baby hasn't yet learnt what to do and so is frustrated and angry, and expressing this by crying.

If you don't like crying - get baby sucking.

Either accept feeding to sleep and cosleeping. Or prioritise the dummy being accepted as essential.

This may not be helpful as I think that you are more interested in training baby to sleep better, rather than just getting through this tough period, but it would mean no cosleeping:

Could you do shifts with your partner? So you start off sleeping alone in the bed with him bringing baby for feeds (or doing feeds without you if possible) and you sleep 7-1, then you move on to the sofa with the Moses basket or crib set up next to you from 1am, and do the rest of the night on there while your partner sleeps alone in the bed? Then an extra morning sleep for you (if possible with work stuff)? Just a thought as you've now got safety concerns and a difficult home setup. And hopefully this is a phase that you just need to get through!

We had awful sleep with my DC, so my suggestion comes from a place of experience and solidarity.

Is reflux a concern? Silent or otherwise. Your comment about the choking made me wonder.