My baby (21 weeks) has never slept through - the best we’ve had was 5/6 hours a few times which was brilliant. Before he turned 16 weeks, he was waking up most nights once and going back down well in his cot after a feed. Sleeping in the cot (next to me) has never been an issue either.
As soon as he turned 16 weeks, sleep started to deteriorate. It’s got worse and worse and we are at the stage where he is awake once an hour, and sometimes awake for several hours overnight. He only settles back down if fed. He doesn’t take a dummy. We use continuous white noise and a sleeping bag. I try shushing him, rubbing his belly/nose/forehead - all of which did settle him back to sleep 5 weeks ago - but he just gets more and more agitated.
His naps during the day have also gone downhill to the point that he sometimes won’t sleep between 2pm and 8pm despite all my efforts. This doesn’t seem to make his sleep worse or better - regardless of naps, his night time sleep is dreadful.
Everyone keeps telling me it’s the 4 month regression and it doesn’t last forever etc etc. It kept me going to start with, thinking it wouldn’t last long but now I just feel like I’m cracking up. It’s getting worse, not better. I’m breastfeeding so it’s basically all on me to feed etc overnight. In the last 10 days I haven’t slept more than an hour and a half at a time and not more than 4 hours overnight. I honestly feel like I’m going insane. I am anxious and paranoid, I am forgetful and clumsy.. my patience is so thin and I am emotional all the time. I don’t want to go out or see people because I am too tired to enjoy anything. I was enjoying being a FTM so much and now I just feel guilty all the time because I’m so exhausted.
I don’t really know what I’m asking for here, maybe just to get it off my chest a bit. Thanks if you’ve read this far!