4½ month old wakes/stirs 10+ a night

[Davo73]

Anyone offer any advice on the above. My son is a breast fed 4½ old who can only sleep for 1 hour max at time. He will then ?wake? and need to be nursed back off. He doesn?t always actually open his eyes just wriggles and moans. If he?s left he?ll wake fully and scream the house down.It will take maybe 20mins (or longer) to get back off. So everytime he starts moaning/wriggling we dive on him so as he doesn?t get to the screaming stage. He co sleeps with my partner as this and on us is the only place he?ll sleep. He sleeps very poorly during the day as well (maybe 2 x 30min sleeps ? again only on my partner or I). It seems his sleeping is now worse than before (and it was pretty shit then if I can blunt). He is exclusively breast fed (can?t get him on a bottle ? a whole other problem area) and is not gaining a lot of weight (currently only 1-2oz a week). Although saying that the last two days we?ve started giving him a small amount of baby rice and formula from a beaker. At night he is feed every 2 hours apart from a 4-5hr stretch at the beginning of the night. We try and get him into a routine by my partner taking him to bed at 7.30/8 every night as we?re trying to get him to sleep with fewer interruptions before we tackle where he sleeps. He is pretty much a nightmare all the time (day included) in getting to sleep ? he fights it screaming/moaning and turning his head.

Any ideas on how we can get him to sleep for longer periods? We are reluctant to use control crying but will probably do it when he?s 6 months. Has anyone used sleep counsellors? Do they work?

As I?m sure you?ll be able to work out this is really tiring us out and is thoroughly depressing/annoying/etc.

Bless him, he is still very tiny, and needing food night and day.

Bumping for someone with more experience.

Congratulations

I can understand this one totally my co-sleeping 4.5mth old DS2 woke every 45mins last night.....which is a shame because we had only just got him sleeping from 8pm-4am . He does have a bad cold though.

Have you tried swaddling him? It used to help DS1 sleep. Sometimes putting them to sleep on their side helps too.

Does he have any naps during the day?

he needs to learn how to sleep for longer - how about a routine in the day - bundle him up and take him out for 2 hr huge walk - would he sleep for that? i would sit on a park bench with a coffee because the hot air in the house woke them up.
my 3 did cluster feed every hour or even half hour before bed time, but i did always try to stretch it from 2 to 3 hours at other times - walk him around give him to someone who doesn't smell of milk for a bit!i think it means they settle down for a good feed from both breasts if they do that.
did you have a traumatic birth? my ds1 was helped by cranial massage for diffrent reasons - a lot of people swear by it, but it's not proven.
i am a fan of grobags and an extra blanket in this weather - it sounds like you are disturbing each other, but i know it's hard to put them down. i did do controlled crying to an extent, but it was horrible and i'd focus on better feeds and day time naps before you resort to that. controversial, but if he needs nursing back to sleep -perhaps a dummy might help - my twins have them for night and don't wake up for them.
i'd also search told threads on here and ask hv for advice.
good luck

dd (4m) has gone through similar phases (including waking every hour all night [bleary]), rarely naps more than an hour and is almost exclusively fed/bounced/carried to sleep.

If ds sleeps a 4-5hr strecth at the start of the night I'd be tempted not to put him to bed till 10ish or even later, as a 11-3am stretch for you can make you feel like you've had a proper night's sleep.

We're not full-time cosleepers and one thing that really helped was shifting her from the moses basket to the big cot (still in our room) - when she stirred in the basket it rustled and woke her up, but in the cot she resettles more often.

How does he sleep in the pram/car? Is a long afternoon walk//drive a possibility? dd's much worse in the night if she hasn't napped durign the day.

tbh I doubt the rice will help with the sleep (or the weight) but I'm not sure what will.

Sorry, I missed the part about in your OP about the naps . I have found that DS needs at least 2 naps during the day, he usually has around an hour in the morning 9am(ish) and a couple of hours at lunchtime. Sometimes he also needs a short late-afternoon nap.

If he doesn't have enough sleep during the day he is usually (even more of) a nightmare during the night.

Thanks for the advice folks.

I don't think the birth was distressing as the labour was just 3hrs and there was no forceps, etc involved. But would a swift labour be as distressing for him as a protracted one as it's all over quickly for him?

We have a grobag so we'll try that and the long walk idea. He's not great in the pram but we've not tried it too much, although the last two times we've been shopping he did fall asleep in it so this could be an option.

The car will send him to sleep as long as he isn't hungry, but as soon as the car stops he wakes.

My 20 week old ds is doing a similar thing on and off - waking every hour or so, then taking about 10-15 mins to settle only to wake up again about 20 mins later. He has just cut his first tooth, so it could be a tooth thing with your ds (apparently the first one is the worst). Also, do you think he could be hungry? Maybe your breast milk isn't enough for him? I only say this because my ds has been a lot happier since introducing a couple of bottles of formula a day - I know people will jump on me for this, but I'm only speaking from my own experience... Another thing, my ds used to only be able to sleep on me until he was 8 weeks old, then I got in touch with sleep expert Andrea Grace who devised a routine for me that really worked until the last few weeks. It didn't involve any cc and although he is a bit of a nightmare during the night, he goes off without a peep in his own cot at 7pm and also naps really well in the day. Maybe she might be able to help you? Quite pricey though.. Anyway, hope this helps - I know how desperate it feels when they don't sleep. My 2.5 year old ds didn't sleep through till he was nearly 2 (and it looks like ds2 may be going the same way!)

Dd did this - it was the reason why I moved her into her own room. I think dh's snoring was disturbing her! We all slept much better as a result but she still woke twice for a feed till around 5 mths.

both mine were like this. complete nightmare and we tried everything. dh spent hours just driving with ds2 as it was the only way he would nod off. only time made any difference. sorry not encouraging just empathy...

"Maybe your breast milk isn't enough for him? I only say this because my ds has been a lot happier since introducing a couple of bottles of formula a day - I know people will jump on me for this, but I'm only speaking from my own experience... "

Without wanting to "jump on you", as I know you are trying to be helpful, this is both spectacularly unhelpful and demoralising to hear, and almost certainly untrue. And I speak as someone who, despite knowing better, constantly doubts my own supply.

Someone like tiktok or hunker can explain far more adequately than me why this is VERY unlikely to be true - please don't doubt yourself on that point.

Do you wear him in a sling? This has miraculous sleep inducing powers in my lo. I find a good daytime nap also helps a better night's sleep too.

We co-sleep here too. I definitely recommend a grobag. He may be cold and stirring because of this. Babies are on a 45 minute cycle so come back up into light sleep every 45 minutes and if they're uncomfortable will often wake up completely. Once you have ruled this out then I would suggest trying to sort out his daytime naps. At 4.5 months my dd was exactly like your ds. She fought every nap/sleep, took a long time to drop off and never slept for more than 45 minutes. Motion worked as long as it was continuous, but this became impossible to keep up. A MNer saved my sanity by pointing out that dd was probably overtired and the lack of daytime naps was making her night sleep impossible. Here's what she suggested:

A baby of this age should not be awake for longer than 2 hours at a time during the day. Once the yawning/eye rubbing starts the baby is overtired and you've missed the best window of opportunity. Lack of daytime sleep means poor nightime sleep. What I did was made sure she was back in her grobag and having a 'quiet play' (no loud singing and tickling etc) after 1.5hrs awake, lie with her and sing quietly or read her a story, then offer a feed and she'd go off to sleep without a fuss. She needed 3 naps a day and to be in bed by 7pm at the latest. It worked wonders. This may not work for you at all, but thought I'd share just in case.

Also, a sling is fantastic. DD always slept in hers!

totally agree with SoH and whoever she quoted re the daytime sleeps

I've found with both of mine you need to get them off to sleep BEFORE they look knackered

Again, thanks for advice folks. We never cease to learn from mumsnet!

Perhaps I should have explained myself further with the breast milk thing - one of the major causes of supply diminishing is tiredness, so it CAN become a vicious circle where you're never getting enough sleep because the baby's up all night (and sometimes all day,)and he's up all night trying to feed but not getting what he needs. I only mention this as a possible cause for him not sleeping as this is what I think happened with me. I totally understand that it's really important to keep breast feeding for as long as possible, but not at the expense of your mental health and ds's health. The only way to find out if he IS getting what he needs is to get him weighed. If he's putting on weight fine, then you know your breast milk supply is not an issue and you can look at other causes. It could just be that ds hasn't learnt how to put himself to sleep properly and needs to be taught. According to Marc Weissbluth (who's written a book about sleep that I'm reading at the moment in a vain attempt to sort out my own ds's sleep issues!), 4-5 months is when babies' sleep patterns become more like adults and this is the point at which they need to be taught to put themselves to sleep. Anyway, I've rambled on enough... MerryLittleCarrotmas, I honestly wasn't trying to be "spectacularly unhelpful" - as someone with 2 DSs, neither of which has slept particularly well, I know how draining it can be, and I was just trying to pass on my experience. Anyway, good luck DAVO73, let us know how you get on!

Sorry, but I disagree that the BF is the issue. Yes, he may need to feed lots in the night but that is because 4-5 months is classic growth spurt time. IME this is generally an awful time for sleep (certainly was for us) and the best thing to do is carry on co-sleeping, get him to nap however you can in the day (feed to sleep, take for a walk, carry in sling, take for a drive then park and have a doze yourself) and catch up on sleep as much as poss (ignoring housework etc!).

Giving formula top-ups is often the first step to ending BF so if you want to carry on BF I would avoid if at all poss. Tiktok etc on the BF boards will back me up on this.

Hang in there, it really won't last forever though it's grim while it does.

Also the more he feeds, the better your supply will become, that is how BF works.

My ds i sbow 5 months old. He is formula fed and went through a terrible time around 4 months, so don't think BF is the issue. He didn't sleep for longer than 30 mins at a time and woke all the time through the night.

He is now soooo much better. I took all of his toys away from his cot, so nothing would distract him. I always shut the door to his room, and made sure he was wearing comfy clothes. I also turned his monitor down as I had a nasty habit of going to him, and I am sure he would have gone back off again. This has eventually helped, but am sure it is just a growth spurt. I also walked everywhere with him in his pushchair as he started to nap better when out, not constantly being taken in and out of the car.

Check this out, when my DD was 4-5 months old her sleeping pattern sounded just like your first post. It was so difficult but it will get better!

We found that dd's sleep improved when she went into her own room, together with letting her cry a bit longer. I'm pretty sure that the own room was the thing that helped most - recently we all shared a room on holiday and she was back to waking 5 or 6 times in the night!

On the bright side, if your lo is 4 1/2 months old, you don't have that much longer to go til they can go into their own room. Until then, cosleeping works a marvel + fits beautifully with bf. Good luck!