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?

@BadgerBum frustratingly he rejected the bottle twice today, so I resorted to BF instead. I only want him to take one bottle a day, but I guess I need to give it a bit of time. Probably should have started trying sooner than just a week before I’m due back to work. I’m self employed so worst comes to worst I can just pause work to feed, but not ideal’ How old is your LO?

Happy new year everyone! I got 2hrs sleep in the spare room while DH held DS while he slept. That took me until 11.30pm and been awake since. Tried to put DS in his crib four times but he was having none of it. Now cosleeping and on to our second feed in less than two hours. For whatever reason I can’t shut off and am trying to think of various floor bed options and if that might work so I can roll away and at least sleep in my own space 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Mytigerhasstripyfeet DD has just turned 5 months and I’m finding her wake window needs to be around 2.5hrs. I’m trying to wait for her to yawn and/or rub her eyes before I take her to bed but sometimes she’ll just keep going and going so I stick to 2.5hrs max. She did refuse her last nap yesterday though so ended up going over 3hrs before I put her to bed and she stayed asleep when I put her down at about 6.50pm but was first wake up was at 11pm

Bad night again

@MintGreenLife She’s nearly 6 months. She’s never been a great sleeper but things were much better until about a week before she turned 4 months (so almost exactly 2 months ago). I thought they’d get better on their own but they don’t really seem to be!
She’s not been keen on the cup the last couple of days which really worries me, but she has seemed keen on solids so far (three days in so only tastes really) so hopefully there will be something she’ll eat while I’m at work! I do work from home in an office in the garden but my job is quite busy so I won’t be able to stop all the time, and also I don’t want my partner to be tied to the house for feeds not able to get out and about.

We had a few longer stretches of sleep last night (3 hrs 50, then a 2.5, then a 3.5) but the evening was a total shitshow. Really need her to learn to sleep without feeding to sleep!

Last night DS went down for the night at 10:30 and woke unsettled at 11:30, 1:30, 2:37 and at 4:17 I put him in with me. He was awake for around half an hour at least all excited and happy, then woke for the day at 8:15!
I couldn't sleep after he went down so I stayed up and saw the new year, I probably nodded off around half 12. I'm shattered today 😴 just don't understand why he's still waking so often at his age

@BadgerBum sounds like we are in a similar situation! DS will be 6 months in 11 days, and I’ll be back to work in Jan, although to be fair only 2 afternoons a week to start. I am worried about how it’ll work, as you have to put so much effort into getting him to sleep, and only 1 of the three family members who will be taking him has succeeded in getting him to sleep, otherwise he just gets overtired and can complete loose it if not careful! Plus at the mo he’s hit and miss with the bottle. Trying again this evening, if no luck may try a cup! X

This is the last few nights for us - the slightly longer chunks between feeds he still wakes up during, I just manage to get him back to sleep if I react quickly by shushing and hair stroking. I’m going to try him in his bedside crib again tonight. We stopped using it as a bedside crib a few months ago as thought maybe he was waking himself up by hitting his arm on the lip of the open side, so instead used it as an independent crib, but putting him down in it is half the battle as 9 times out of 10 he wakes up. I’m cosleeping but I hate it. Plan is to feed him sat facing the long side/open side of the crib, so I can lower him in very gently, and easily shush and settle him without having to sleep in the same bed. Wish me luck!

@MintGreenLife ooh when was your LO born? Ours was 12th July

@MintGreenLife also good luck! We just need to hang the door on LO’s nursery then we’re moving her in there and sleep training (controlled crying, short intervals). New Year New Plan!

@BadgerBum snap!! 12th of July ☺️ I’ve looked into sleep training (Ferber method) but I’m really not sure whether it’s a good idea or not! Seems people are very divided on sleep training 😫 just tried a bottle again, no luck and seems to have made him very angry 🤦🏻‍♀️ Starting to feel like it’s not worth the stress. How did you get her started on a cup? Is it an open cup? I’ve bought him some silicone open cups for weaning, but not sure if it might be too early for that! X

@MintGreenLife people are very divided! We’ve decided we’ve got to do something though, and I don’t think some of the more gradual methods will work as I essentially used to be able to pat/shush her to sleep and I can’t now. We’ll see.
It’s a sippy cup we’re using, a transition one so the spout is soft like a bottle top (but sippy cup shaped). We hadn’t tried the bottle for a couple of months and decided to skip it as it had got so stressful last time and go straight on to sippy cup. It’s going ok but she definitely needs to be taking way more from it, I’m a bit worried about it!

@MintGreenLife what is that app where you have recorded wakes etc on? The photo

I feel like this will never end! Is there a way to sleep train if so how? Lots of people have spoke about it before but don't know what to do or how to start.
Lo is also teething so until they are through will this be it for now?

Omg the DARLING SON went down at 8:30 tonight!! I'm in the bath 😬 with a glass of port!! 🍷 and a candle!! 🕯
I feel like I'm at a spa day!!!

🙏🏻 praying he's not up a lot tonight I'm knackered 😴

[quote pinkgin1]@MintGreenLife what is that app where you have recorded wakes etc on? The photo

I feel like this will never end! Is there a way to sleep train if so how? Lots of people have spoke about it before but don't know what to do or how to start.
Lo is also teething so until they are through will this be it for now?[/quote]
@pinkgin1 you mean the huckleberry app?
MintGreen mentioned it the other day I've never used it and he's 9 and half months but I downloaded it and I find it helpful actually with seeing if he's getting enough sleep. Today was the first day it notified me when it thinks he should be napping. It wasn't far off tbf, he went down about half an hour after both times but it gave me an idea of when I should be winding him down ready for nap

Hi everyone! Son in his own room as from tonight, eek! Well... he went to sleep at 8.20 and has already woken once so we'll see how it goes. I think he'll end up in our bed.

Thanks for the replies about wake windows 🙂

I've been thinking now he's got his own room (it was the office before) I'm going to try put him down awake but sleepy for daytime naps. He contact naps atm. I'm hoping if I'm persistent with it in the day time it'll help him self soothe at night 🤞it's a theory anyway.

Think I will set a limit of 30m each nap time so if I can't get him down awake but sleepy in that time I'll then let him contact nap as usual.

If we make any progress I'm thinking I could gradually increase how awake he is when I put him down?

Going to start on Monday 😊

Sorry you're all having crappy nights still. @pinkgin1 it's the worst when you have an improvement and then they go back to waking all the time isn't it. I can't believe we had 5 nights in a row where he only woke twice to feed and went right back to sleep. It's like, I know you can do it, so why won't you?!

I think this is our problem! Makes a lot of sense now! Use to sleep through then suddenly didn't and has these symptoms a lot the past week. I've been so tired I hadn't even thought his teething was causing the waking constantly

@pinkgin1 teething is the worst. Some of my friends’ babies seemed to sail through it and never had many issues but my son was dreadful! I’d say the first two and the molars were the worst. I’d recommend nurofen over calpol. I used to give Ashton and parsons powder too, not sure if it was a placebo but sometimes seemed to help. I didn’t find the gels helped really. Apparently the worst bit for them is just before the teeth breaks through the gum should only be really bad for a couple of days.

Well, we had quite the night. She went to bed at 7.45pm, slept until 11pm when she then wouldn’t go back to sleep until 2am. Nothing would get her off at all, even feedings didn’t make her sleepy. She eventually dropped off in bed with us but woke every 40 minutes until 6am. Fed her back to sleep and she slept until 7.45am.
She had two good naps in the cot yesterday that I had to wake her from in order to fit a 3rd nap in and then had about 35 mins in the early evening to see her through until bed so her sleep totalled about 3h10, wondering if that’s too much for her 🤷‍♀️

@BadgerBum I think I’ll consider doing something similar. It’s so hard to know what’s best, and whether it’ll even help isn’t it! I imagine after 2 months you’re at your wits end though. I’m 11 nights in to hourly wakeups and already trying to figure out how to ‘fix’ things 😭

@pinkgin1 it’s Huckleberry ☺️ I’ve used it for quite a while, and even when DS was sleeping better he still only ever averaged about 8 hours a day across night time sleep and naps, which I think is about 4-5 hours short of where he should be 🤦🏻‍♀️

So last night I decided I wasn’t going to cosleep and I was going to use the crib as a bedside crib again. I had DS from 11.30pm-7am, during which he had five feeds. The longest stretch he did in his crib was 1.5hrs, otherwise it was consistently an hour at a time. I near enough didn’t sleep the whole time as was so switched on and tuned in to his every movement. I had to ‘shush’ and stroke his hair for 5ish mins to stop he waking on three occasions. Think I only ever dropped off for 20 mins or so here and there when he was in a deep sleep. I think for me that’s still better than cosleeping though, so I’ll carry on with that for now!

How was everyone’s night? X

@LCF2021 oh no, that sounds awful! Was that more day time sleep than she would usually have? X

@MintGreenLife It’s about what she’d usually have, give or take 20-30 mins. Her sleep has been atrocious for so long now that maybe she just needs less in the day? I don’t know. I’m clutching at straws really. Going to try her in her own room in the big cot tonight. She’ll be in there next week when we start sleep training anyway so may aswell give it a go now.
She only napped 40 mins this morning, whereas yesterday she did nearly 1.5 hours…so unpredictable.

@LCF2021 remind me how old she is? DS is absolutely all over the place with his naps. Yesterday he was up at 8am for the day and had his first nap at 4pm 🤦🏻‍♀️ Which is awful I know. That wasn’t despite my best efforts. I even took him out for an hour long walk in the carrier as he would usually drop off, but he was awake the entire time! I seem to generally have a non-sleeper on my hands.

@MintGreenLife She’s just turned 5 months. Everything I read says 3-4 hours of naps at this age! I can’t remember what my son was doing at this age, he was generally an awful sleeper too. I think I’ve blocked out the first 6 months of his life!!

Mine is 4.5 months and 3-4 hours of naps is such a struggle. I love my DD but my god I hate how much of my day is spent counting down to the next bloody nap. If they are supposed to sleep this much why is it such a fight lol.

@StickyStickyStickStickSong that sounds delightful, hope you had a good night!! And everyone else too.

My DH has taken her and the dog out for the final nap of the day and I've had a bath too, with my new Christmas bath bomb and a G&T. Hopping into fresh sheets and PJs and praying for a decent night. Given lots of formula today as we have been out and about so wondering if it will make any difference to her sleep...

Has anyone else got a friend/relative with a fantastic sleeper? My friends baby is the same age almost to the day and is sleeping through the night and she can do things like give him a quick BF during the day and pop him in his cot and off he snoozes for a couple of hours... take him to the pub in the pram and have a nice meal while he snoozes... it all sounds rather blissful and I'm very jealous!