Sleep regression. Anyone else want to join!? Sleepless mums!

[pinkgin1]

Currently going through what I believe could be a four month sleep regression? For ages my son slept really well didn't wake up in the night and if he did it was for one bottle then slept. Most nights slept 9:30pm till about 8am next day.
Has alllllllllll gone out the window the past week 🤣 I always knew the good sleep wouldn't last long and I appreciated it when it did but it's kinda making me feel extremely tired now including my partner🥱
How long does it last?? Will it go on for months?? Will I ever have a 8-8 again? 😥😥🤣
The strange thing is if he wakes up. As soon as I place him onto my bed and pillow he sleeps. So if it was a sleep regression surely he would wake also in my bed?

@CiabattaKat your LO sounds similar to my DS he's 9 months. Can't self settle still, and wakes around 3-4 times during night where I have to put dummy in shhhh and gently pat his back til he goes back to sleep. It's normally around 5am that he's wide awake though so I put him in with me and then he sleeps til 8:30-9am but I need to stop that now because I'm back at work next Tuesday and I definitely won't be able to sleep in til 9 then! 😩

@CiabattaKat I think it’s very dependent on baby. My DS was also a nightmare, very similar to DD…from 4-6 months up every 1-1.5 hours but at least I could attempt to rest in the day but not this time.
At 6 months we sleep trained, which took longer than I thought, but did result in him only waking once a night unless teething/poorly and he began consistently sleeping through at 11 months.
I think I’m just cursed with bad sleepers. The toddler stage is a lot more fun, trust me. I’m just willing the months away until DD is one and becomes more entertaining and easier.

@CiabattaKat agree with what @LCF2021 and @JammyRedRooo said, it's just depending on the baby. We have seen through the worst and it takes 2/3 attempts each time to get him to sleep now in the cot, with wake ups every 2 hours 🤣

...give take, sometimes it's 1.5 sometimes it's 2.5

DD had crappy naps yesterday and so went to bed really early - 7pm so she had done her long stretch by 11pm. Then she woke up every 45 minutes until 6am when she wouldnt go back down at all.

Does anyone else feel like lack of sleep really takes its toll on their relationship. I really resent DH sometimes for getting much more sleep than I do, even though it's not his fault she will only BF to sleep and hes doing most of the walks in the carrier for her naps at the moment. We seem to be being so snappy with each other.

@JammyRedRooo Absolutely this. I feel so miserable at the moment due to sheer exhaustion and I’m really wishing I hadn’t breastfed, it’s been so problematic for us and with her not taking a bottle I get zero breaks. Crappy naps here too, 40 mins is standard now. It’s so hard to get her to bed early when we have DS to deal with too as I could be stuck in the room with her for an hour. I miss being able to put him to bed so so much.

@LCF2021 I feel the same about breastfeeding! And I feel like there is so much support to get them on the boob but so little to help get them off/onto a bottle.

@JammyRedRooo totally agree. My partner is a crappy sleeper so he’s not sleeping much, but I get annoyed because he sleeps in the spare room so he has the opportunity to sleep, even if he’s not very good at it. I know it’s not his fault but it’s so frustrating when he’s had a bad night just because, and mine’s because I’ve been up every 1-2 hours.

I had such a ‘can’t do this anymore’ moment last night when she woke up half an hour after being put down at about 2am, and I had to feed her again because that’s the only way to get her to sleep. Blaaargh.

Also agree on the naps - 40 minutes is classed as a good one these days! And I’m often doing 2 or 3 walks a day trudging around in the drizzle just to achieve them - laugh or cry right!?

Oh @BadgerBum we have the same child I’m sure! We’re bracing a night away to the in laws tomorrow and I’m desperate not to but I have little choice and I’m terrified of DD waking up the whole house, including my eldest and his older cousin who will be there too.
I’m counting down to my sleep consultant call so we can really get cracking.

I used to feel the way you ladies do right now, once baby got to 5 months I had enough and forced my husband to bounce/hold the baby to sleep at least once in the night, no matter how long it took. I was surprised at how the baby took to it!! It's a silly question but have you all tried?

@LCF2021 Keep us posted on how it goes with the sleep consultant, I’d be really interested to know what they say! We’re going to crack on with sleep training soon, just need to hang the door on LO’s room, then we can move her in there and start. I am pinning all my hopes on it so I really, REALLY hope it improves things a little!

@Sneezymcsneezy maybe I should do this! Problem is I know how quick and quiet it is to feed her back to sleep, whereas if he does that she’ll be up crying for ages and I won’t sleep anyway. But I’m just perpetuating the problem at the moment! He is off work now (we’ve got a month off together now before I go back to work) so maybe we should give it a go.

@BadgerBum absolutely give it a go, you aren't sleeping anyway so might as well!! We did it once husband was off.. for a month too! Hence why we now split the night, it's a confidence booster for him too. Next step will be for him to also feed in the night aswell...

I’ve been pointed in the direction of this thread by @JammyRedRooo after posting on the parenting forum. My DS is 5.5mo but was three weeks early. For five nights now he’s been waking every single hour, and for about 10 nights he’s been a nightmare to get to sleep. It’s taking us hours in the evening and we have lots of fighting sleep and sometimes hours of screaming. In the night when we try and put him back in his crib he wakes instantly and screams. The only way to get him back to sleep is to feed, and he is ENF so it’s all falling on me to get us through the night.

In the early hours I resort to cosleeping, which I hate. This wouldn’t be so bad, but I feed him laying down on his side, and then unlatch him once he’s fallen asleep and roll him onto his back. Rolling him onto his back wakes him, and he fusses until I roll him back onto his side, cuddle him in and shush. I’m so exhausted that I end up falling asleep and just letting him sleep like this. I sleep with an arm behind his back to stop him rolling back, but do sort of lean him back a bit so that he’s less likely to roll into me/on his face. It’s this side sleeping that makes me really nervous though. Does anyone know if this is safe?!

Does anyone have any other ideas/tips? Finding this so hard 😭

Pleased to have found a threads of others going through the same! Xx

@MintGreenLife your LO is like mine, I have him in with me often. I think he just likes the feeling of being close to me. DH sleeps in spare room because he's paranoid of rolling onto him so it's just me and him in a king size. It's actually rather lovely 🤭🥰 but I am transitioning him into his own room now. He lasts in there til around 4/5am and then I put him with with me for the last couple hours.
No matter how far I put him away from me I always wake up and he's managed to move himself and is snuggled right up to me I often wake up to a kick in the boob neck or face. I was anti co-sleeping before, HV will always tell you not to, but my mum said she always had me in with her and tbf it's been the only way We've both managed to sleep through his illnesses, teething or regressions so 🤷🏼‍♀️
He pretty much slept with me all night every night from 6.5-8 months because everything seemed to happen at once for him bless him. But he's 9 months now and ive been putting him in own room for last month. He's making progress 👍🏻😁

I find when he goes down for the night he has a good 3 hour stint, then it's every 2 hours now he unsettles where I go in and quickly settle him but it's the 5am wake up when he's having a full on party in his cot, so that's when I scoop him up and take him in to my bed now. Then I get another good 3hr stint out of him.
We just have to do what we have to do don't we 😊

@StickyStickyStickStickSong my DH sleeps in the spare room also, but I make him 😂 I wish I liked cosleeping. It makes me nervous and I get so uncomfortable stuck on one side/in one position for hours. I wouldn’t feel so bad about it if he would sleep on his back. So do you find your LB has his face pressed up against you? I just worry about him getting into a position where he struggles to breathe properly, but surely he would let me know?! I worry about him rolling off the bed too, but like you am in a kindsize and put him right in the middle of the bed. That’s great he’s started sleeping in his own room recently. Were you doing full nights of cosleeping before that? I can’t figure out how to manage this new waking up every hour. Not sure whether to keep trying to put him in his crib in our room at the start of the night, or just give in and cosleep from the start. That’s what we used to have - his first chunk at night used to be the longest - around 3-4 hours, but we’ve even had 6, 7 and even 8 hours before! Xx

@Sneezymcsneezy We’ve tried to get DH to do some settling and it can literally take an hour+. If on the rare occasion she does settle she’ll wake up less than 20 mins later. It’s so exhausting. I’m absolutely at the end of my tether after 8 weeks of hourly wake ups, they’re killing me.

@LCF2021 to be honest if it did take an hour+ then let it take an hour+, a two/three hour stint is just so much better than being woken every single hour, you need to preserve your own health. That being said, I really hope the sleep consultant works out 🤞🤞🤞, but until then, turf the baby to your husband for much needed sleep and do not feel guilty about it

Hello hello!

@MintGreenLife I’ve just started co-sleeping with mine for the last week or so. It was to ‘get us through Christmas’ but it’s been something of a revelation.

LO has been waking every 45m to 1.5hr for about a month now. He’s 5.5m. We had a few good nights where I thought he was cured, but now he’s back to constant wake ups if he’s in his own bed.

The thing is with co-sleeping is I think we could all be miserable, stressed and awake, or I can let the baby sleep next to me and we’ll all get some decent rest.

I agree it is uncomfortable but I’ve decided it’s way better than being up for the day at 4am!

The side sleeping thing sounds tricky though. Can your son roll over?

@Mytigerhasstripyfeet thanks for replying ☺️ Gosh it’s awful isn’t it! Do you find he wakes less when cosleeping? Or that it’s just easier to manage? When I have coslept with him the last few nights he’s waking just as much, it’s just less fuss to get him back down. Nope he’s not rolling yet, not sure if that makes things better or worse 🤔 the wanting to be on his side close to me isn’t an entirely new thing, as I’ve coslept here and there on bad nights, but he generally was ok on his back next to me, but now seems unhappy like this 😖

@MintGreenLife no he doesn't have his face pressed up against me luckily but he just manages to shimmy over and he likes sleeping on his side so I wake up and he's just there sometimes patting my face and looking at me haha cute. But in a morning when he wants to get up he will turn horizontally so his feet are in my face and he will let me know he wants to get up lol I usually get a few kicks.

Yes we co slept all night for a few weeks because he had outgrown the compact cot I had at the side of the bed but also had started teething then got a cold etc so I waited til he was better before putting him in own room at 8 months because I just know he'd have had me up all night otherwise.

My DH hasn't dismantled the compact cot yet so I have that still up against the one side of the bed so I know he can't fall out.but he's getting better in his own room very slowly. The stretches of sleep are slightly increasing xx

@LCF2021 let us know how the sleep training goes

@MintGreenLife yes horrific! I was beginning to feel quite depressed, sleep deprivation makes it so difficult to feel positive.

Hm on reflection I'd say he's much easier to settle. He still wakes frequently but I can shush/cuddle him immediately when he starts to fidget, before he fully wakes. And before I fully wake. I'm still feeding him at 1am, 3am and 5am most nights but can go straight back to sleep, I'm not having to carefully lower him into a crib praying he won't wake. God I hate that!

Umm it's just I read it's fine for them to sleep on their sides once they can roll but not sure how reliable that info is anyway! My DS also sleeps on his side when he's in the cot and can't consistently roll. Physically capable... Just keeps forgetting how haha

@StickyStickyStickStickSong the face patting thing is adorable! Reassuring you co-slept for a few weeks but you're making progress with LO being in own room. We're thinking we'll make the transition in a couple of weeks, I'm hoping co-sleeping atm isn't going to make this really difficult.

Oh god I must have jinxed us with my co-sleeping is the answer posts.

Up every hour. I'm so sad it's 4am already. Maximum 2hrs sleep left in the night. And I haven't had 1hr unbroken sleep. Argh guys!