Losing it a bit

[EmmaInParis]

Don’t know quite why I’m posting except maybe hoping for some support or solidarity...

DD is 4mo and wakes pretty much every hour from about 2am. She’s never gone for very long stretches at the beginning of the night, four hours is usually tops but generally more like 3. She’ll feed about 10/11, 1/2 and then after that she can often be waking every hour until morning.

I know I’m luckier than a lot of people as I have a partner who shares the nights with me and we take turns to sleep in the spare room to get a decent chunk each, I go to bed early and come take over from the second feed onwards (so the bad half of the night). I can just about cope with this arrangement for now but struggling to see an end in sight as it’s been this way more or less since she was born. I keep being told about the four month sleep regression and I’m feeling really anxious about it potentially getting even worse.

The beginning of the night has improved as she is generally easy to settle - she goes into her cot awake and goes to sleep more or less by herself with a dummy and sometimes some shush pat.

However tonight she’s taken an hour to get down and she’s been wailing and wailing. I found myself getting really frustrated bordering on angry with her and then terribly guilty for feeling that way - she’s just a baby and I adore her and she’s been poorly this week so I should expect sleep to hit the skids right?

Naps have been crap for a while now too and I find myself getting incredibly stressed about sleep on the whole. I wish I could be more laid back and go with the flow.

Any words of wisdom or encouragement greatly appreciated. Please no co sleeping suggestions, I know they are well meaning but feeding lying down doesn’t work for me because of certain BFing challenges I have and in any event she doesn’t sleep any better in my bed (we have a sidecar type thing so it’s as convenient as it can get for me anyway).

Thanks

At around that age we did shush and pat with DD2 while she lay in the cot, it was a bit awkward leaning over but hey ho. Then when she was nearly out I would put on some white noise at a reasonable volume not too loud), I would leave it on all night and most nights she would sleep through.
I can sympathise with how exhausting the lack of sleep is, my first child didn't sleep until the age of about 3 years and it broke me.

It is so hard op it really is.
What are her naps like in the day?

No practical advice (my LO going through four month regression type thing just now) but I would really try not to stress over sleep issues. Yes, it's rubbish to be so tired. Yes, we can worry and obsess over short nap times or whatever. However I found the added stress I felt about sleep issues was making the whole thing way harder to deal with. I was kinda blaming / putting pressure on myself for not being able to fix it. Was making me feel pretty down. So for now I just accept poor sleep is a phase, accept it, try my best to help LO sleep, but don't stress overly. Easier said than done especially after going cross-eyed reading oodles of sleeping tips online

Thanks for all the responses it helps to know I’m not alone and the kindness of strangers helps too

@Yogaposer we use continuous white noise too which definitely helps but nowhere near her sleeping through yet. I’m more than happy to get up with her and actually quite enjoy the night feeds, it’s the random frequent waking for no apparent reason that stresses me out

@Moonshine11 her naps are a bit all over the show to be honest. She usually has 3-4 hrs spread across 3-5 naps. They’re very unpredictable in terms of length, from 30-50 mins a lot of the time but sometimes a 1.5 to 2hr one in the morning or around lunch time. Either in the swing, cot or pram depending what we’re doing that day. Try to watch wake windows and use Huckleberry but worry that’s making me even more obsessive.

@Skyla01 you are absolutely right, the stress is worse than the situation and that’s the one thing I can try to control

I really hope you find a solution, totally understand just how overwhelming it can feel. As the saying goes, this too shall pass..its just hard to hold onto that thought when you are in the thick of it all.

Thank you @Yogaposer - not entirely sure why it’s getting to me so much today as it’s been a fairly unremarkable day and night apart from the bedtime battle, but there we go x

From what I can remember I'm sure there's a four month sleep regression as well, so that may be contributing. Hope it improves!

Thanks @Biscuits101 - I keep hoping it is that regression at play but it feels like it’s been like this since she was born so I’m getting anxious anticipating it getting even worse if not