How did 4 month sleep regression end for you?

[Skyla01]

Curious to hear others experiences of this. LO is five month old and sleep has been bad for a month, gradually getting worse. I've resorted to co-sleeping (it was that or almost zero sleep some nights) but don't want it to become long term.

I've read conflicting info re: baby will start to sleep better again on their own versus you need to sleep train / teach self-soothing. Interested to hear some real life experiences!

It didn’t! DD 8 months and was a great sleeper before 4 months now up multiple times a night often for hours at a time. I think we’re just running different problems one after another though. So we had the 4 month sleep regression, then learning to roll, then crawl and now pulling to stand, all of which are known to bugger sleep. I’m hoping once she can run she might sleep

@MotherOfDragon20 oh dear! Although I have heard for some people unfortunately that is the case. How do you manage her sleep? Any tips?

I sleep trained at 6mo as I was close to losing my mind with almost 2m of hourly waking.
Fed to sleep, popped into the cot, left for 5 mins of crying and then went and cuddled/patted/fed as needed, she slept through in 3 nights.
Not for everyone I know, but I couldn’t cope any longer. My mental health was tanking.

Honestly @Skyla01 absolutely nothing we have tried has made any difference (although we haven’t tried CC or cry it out) so our focus has been on managing our own expectations and finding a way through this phase instead of trying to change it. We work in shifts so I’ll deal with all wake ups from 9-2am and my husband will do 2-7am and then the next night we swap, this means we get 5 hours uninterrupted a night and maybe a few more hours with regular wake ups. We co sleep for the second half of the night when she just refuses to be in the cot. And on the really bad nights I read this (picture included) and remind myself that this too shall pass and I will sleep again!!

@MonkeyPuddle I was thinking we might do similar, but also want to wait until babe is a wee bit older. Sleep deprivation is so tough, another month of this wouldn't be welcome. Tried shush / pat with partial success but we would need to properly commit.

@MotherOfDragon20 that picture has some very good advice! It's amazing how babe can just refuse to sleep. Remembering it won't be forever is important too, need to tough it out meantime.

We found it did improve from the hourly wake ups but he probably woke twice a night and took a lot of settling for each nap and bedtime until we did some sleep training at around 10 months. It’s different for everyone but I personally was a better parent with less broken sleep. It does get better eventually either way 💙

I found the four month sleep regression stopped around 6 months old. My dd went from refusing to nap for hours (sometimes into 7 hours with no sleep) to having two reliable naps a day. The way I did the nap time routine remained identical throughout. The only thing that changed was I moved her from her newborn bedside crib to a proper cot in her nursery. She seemed to like the space to move around and stretch out. It seemed to solve the issues of sleeping at night at the same time too (she was waking up hourly at points and it was exhausting). Fwiw my routine is: nappy change, blind down, sleeping bag on, sometimes a book and then feed to sleep (I'm breastfeeding so I always feed to sleep).
If you have a baby monitor and are comfortable at this age, would you try daytime naps in the cot to see if that helped?

I don’t remember it’s all to fuzzy. Pretty sure it got a little better by itself then much better when ds went into big cot in own room at 6mo.

We had the four month regression a little early, plus a cold and now he’s sitting and crawling at 5.5 months so has been through a lot developmentally which has impacted his sleep.

We were getting a false start at night where he would wake up screaming after 45 mins and then another 2-3 times between 7.30 and midnight. Between midnight and 7, he’s wake another 3-4 times.

The past few nights, we’ve not had the false start and we’ve had 3 wakes between 7-7, so I think we are slowly easing our way out.

What’s helped is following the 2-3-4 method with wake times and playing white noise at night. We’ve never fed or rocked to sleep, and have always done drowsy but awake instead, so that’s probably helped.

@liquoricecravings naps are all on me or in pram. Have thought about trying cot naps with a short routine. Currently she sees her cot as a playpen and if I pop her in during the day she starts doing gymnastics but haven't tried proper cot naps. I've heard conflicting advice over whether to tackle night or day sleep first. I don't mind the cuddles but longer term cot naps would be ideal.

@MaverickDanger similar here with multiple wakes. With co sleeping at the moment she's much more settled, who knows what she would be doing in her own bed. Naps here are still on the short side so x4 or 5 a day. Looking forward to days of two longer naps soon I hope! Fingers crossed that things are improving for you!

@PairOfPears how did you handle hourly wake ups? Power through, take shifts, co sleep?

@Skyla01 co-slept extremely rarely as I’m a really heavy sleeper so was just too nervous. Various coping mechanisms included the in laws popping round to hold him once a week while I slept, DH taking weekend nights, immense amounts of snacks and Diet Coke during the day, not worrying at all about housework, not worrying at all about doing the bare minimum with the baby after a really hard night and making sure I left the house at least once a day (but being very careful about whether I thought I could drive safely that day). But in all honesty I didn’t cope that well and cried a lot on the kitchen floor. It was hard but it passed. We can do hard things and get through to the other side, I’m living proof! But just give yourself a break wherever possible and understand that you’re conserving your energy to give your baby what they need at night.

@Skyla01 Just wondering how/if the 4 month regression ended for you? Currently 4 weeks into ours, and desperately need to see some light at the end of the tunnel!

It ended on it's own after 5 weeks. You definitely don't need to sleep train. Although the regression started early for us at 13 weeks. The people I know where it seems to have gone on for months are when it's started late and merged with teething and separation anxiety.

Sleep was then ok for a bit but not spectacular. He would sleep 2 or 3 hours at a time with 3 or 4 wakes. Then at 6 months in his own room it massively improved 4, 5 or 6 hour stretches pretty regular with 2 or 3 wakes. Even an 8 hour stretch once. It's worth noting in this time there were rough patches with teething, sleep crawling etc... Now we've hit the 8-10 month regression. He has separation anxiety and is learning to walk. It's nowhere near as bad as the 4 month one so far though.

It's just a roller coaster really. All the websites saying you need to sleep train or it will never end are just people trying to sell you something. Don't worry about it. Just get through and enjoy cuddling your baby.

We got though the 4 month by doing independent sleep. Then the 6 month hit. Isn't too bad like the four it's just the bedtime side can be rough at times x

@LoveYouHoneybear I'm afraid her sleep has never improved much despite gentle sleep training. Last night was up every 1-2 hours then awake from 0530 this morning.

We had a few weeks before DS slept through again. It was every hour or so for the first few days, then 3-4 times a night for a couple of weeks, usually waking for the day at 5ish. We moved DS into his own room and gave him time to settle himself everytime he woke up and eventually he got back to sleeping through pretty reliably, he sleeps better in his own room. He also started needing to be on his front to go to sleep, he wouldn't sleep on his back much past 4 months so we had to plonk him down on his tummy and pat his bottom until he (finally!) went to sleep.

I know this post is old but wondered how it worked out for OP. I’m 6 weeks in to hourly wake ups!