4+ month sleep regression support thread

[bubblepond]

Having just read a 4 month sleep regression thread from 2010 and found it very therapeutic I wondered if anyone fancies joining me for a current thread to help each other through this less than ideal time?!

we actually have a 24 week old (born just at 37 weeks) who since 4 months after her due date exactly has had very disrupted sleep. Combi-fed with 1 bottle per day in the afternoon but otherwise all BFs, previously waking 0-1 times per night since around 12 weeks. I thought we had missed the regression but at 4 months 3 weeks it hit with a vengeance and we are now 4 weeks in!

really really want to avoid controlled crying or sleep training. not looking for advice so much as solidarity if anyone fancies joining!

I'll join! My LO was sleeping fine until literally on his 4 month birthday and since then it has been multiple-hourly wake ups. He uses a dummy and suddenly can't get into next sleep cycle without it. I've been trying gentle sleep training since yesterday which I think is helping

I was getting 8-9 hours for a few weeks and loving life, now we’ve had 4 nights in 10 days of waking every 1.5-2 hours 😭 last night was “better” with his longest stretch being 4.5 hours, then 3-2-1 😴 he’s just over 16 weeks so seems to have started early. He also has a bit of a sniffle and a cough at the moment which must not be helping.

I don’t want to do sleep training either, I’m hoping he can just figure it out naturally. I’m just too lazy and feel it would be too tiring and stressful to start that fight when he’s so easy to just feed to sleep.

I have found my people! DS2 is 20 weeks, was doing 9-7 with two night feeds, now generally up every two to three hours. Although he's occasionally thrown in a five or six hour stretch just to tease me that he can do it... 😴

He can't self settle at all - he's rocked to sleep in the day and fed to sleep at night. I'm trying to give him opportunities to fall asleep alone (IE putting him in the cot when he's calm at nap time, but if he starts getting distressed, just going back to rocking). He is not taking those opportunities as yet! @naomisuissa, what method are you using? I definitely don't want him upset (not least because 3YO DS1 is in the next bedroom over!), but if there's any gentle support I can give to help him link his cycles, that would be good...

DS1 was just so different - much more spirited and refused to let us rock him to sleep from 17 weeks!

It’s so tough isn’t it!
DD went down at 10 last night, then was up at 12, 2, 4.45, 6 and 8. We have tried moving her daily bottle of formula from afternoon to bedtime today to see if it makes a difference!
what are you doing sleep training wise @naomisuissa ? Interested to know what works for some people!
i hope the sniffle and cough doesn’t develop further @GinnyBee and that you have a better night tonight!
@TheBestSpoon dd doesn’t self settle either! She mostly requires BF to sleep, occasionally DH can rock her to sleep but not often. Around 12 weeks she did self settle whilst we were on holiday but hasn’t done it since!

I'm trying to work on self settling but has involved bit of crying and there were fewer wake ups in night 1 than night 2 (last night) but much better than multiple wake ups previously. He was falling asleep on breast or with dummy so I now make sure he's awake and without dummy when I put him down for the night (around 730 pm), even if it means taking him on and off breast to keep him awake. He is obviously v sleepy when I put him down but I think important that he is aware he is in cot. First night when I did this he cried for about 20 seconds. Second night he didn't cry at all. When he wakes after that in night I use shush pat or PUPD to put him back to sleep instead of dummy. I feed him if he wakes after 4am. On night 1 of this he woke once and night 2 he woke 3 times. Both big improvement on before but I hope we make progress tonight! We also do same for naps in day and he has a good bed time routine.

A slightly better night last night - he went to sleep at 8:30 then up at 11:30, 1:45 and 5 before up for the day at 6:30. So a couple of three hour stretches - WAHEY! Got to celebrate the small victories... 😂At least all three wake-ups were fairly straightforward feed back to sleep ones - his most annoying habit is falling back to sleep for precisely ten minutes before needing resettling. He once did that four times in a row at 4am - I nearly cried...

@bubblepond good luck with the bottle change! DS currently has one bottle of formula a day, but we'll be upping that soon as I'm going back to work in November and DH is on shared parental leave, so he'll need to be fully bottle fed in the day by then. I am interested to see if it will have any effect, but honestly, I don't think it's hunger driving the waking, just that he can't fall asleep alone.

@naomisuissa Thanks, that's really helpful. I've been trying to put DS down drowsy, but he doesn't seem very happy about it! I guess at some point I'm just going to have to bite the bullet, accept there will be a bit of crying and go for it, but think I'll give him a bit longer to maybe get it himself (maybe... I hope... I pray...!!!)

We had a better night last night, but I'm putting it down to his 16 week jabs and calpol coma and not expect such stellar performance again tonight 🙈 he put himself to bed around 7.30 which is 2 hours earlier than usual and we weren't prepared for it so he napped on husband's arms first for 2 hours, then got him changed and took downstairs and put on sleeping bag and fed to sleep. Woke up 3.30 for a feed and then didn't want to go back down until 5am, when so far these night wakings have been simple feed to sleep and straight back in the cot. Then we slept in until 8am so I feel amazing now!

Sorry to hear other people are struggling too. We're at 11 weeks but I think we're hitting the four month sleep regression early. He used to go to sleep at 11 then wake up at 3 and 5 but for the last 5 nights he's been waking every hour. If I feed him he falls straight back to sleep but then he needs propping up as he has reflux so I end up staying awake even though he's back to sleep. Not sure if I'm storing up problems for myself by always feeding him back to sleep. During the day I've always just let him sleep on me or in the sling so feel like I'm getting that bit wrong too from the reading I've done.

I’m also in the middle of the regression! DS was sleeping 11-7 at 3 months, after being fed or rocked to sleep. And was consistently having 2 long naps. From 18 weeks he won’t be fed or rocked to sleep, wakes up 2-3 times per night and only naps for 30 mins 🙀

as he was crying so much anyway even with the rocking we are now just sitting next to him, stroking his head and singing to him. Still taking ages and fair bit of crying but he only woke once last night and his naps are getting longer again (22 weeks)

Good luck everyone!

How long has it been seen you've stopped rocking him? I'm just worried that last night was worse for my LO than night before but it sounds like we are doing similar to resettle them. I probably need to be more patient. Great u had a good night last night.

@Slanketeer You just have to do what you have to do to get through with some semblance of sanity. I got neurotic about not feeding to sleep with my first, but there was a lot of crying settling him other ways and I'm not sure it was worth it. Although DS2 is now a feed to sleep machine so maybe I should have been more worried 🙄 They're all so different I think you

Argh, hit post too early, but think I'd made my point!

@Movingsoon21 your son sounds like my DS1 - it got to the point where just leaving him to it (with us sat right by him!) resulted in the least crying so that's what we did. If we tried to rock him, he just got more and more wound up, whereas in his cot he'd do a "settling cry" that gradually wound down. And once he could self settle, he was well on the way to being a good sleeper who slept through the night from six months - hope you have the same experience. DS2 is so different - he's very happy to be rocked or fed to sleep, and gets increasingly cross in his cot, even with verbal and physical reassurance. Hopefully he'll grow out of it as I don't want to sleep train (and he's far too young for that anyway).

@TheBestSpoon thank you, that gives me hope!

@TheBestSpoon thank you - by some miracle it worked and we had 1 wake up for the first time in a looooong time! I’m not holding out my hopes that it’ll continue but we will see!

@Slanketeer definitely dont feel like you’re doing anything wrong with baby sleeping on you during the day ❤️ There’s so much advice out there it’s hard to know what’s “right” and I think I’ve come to the conclusion there’s no right or wrong, it’s just about what works for you! DD will rarely be put down for naps by me during the day, but will happily be put down by my husband 😂

@bubblepond Ooh, yay, glad to hear it! Might try the same thing and see what happens...

@Slanketeer mine only contact naps too, nothing wrong with it unless it doesn’t fit your lifestyle! For us it’s either contact naps or no naps, so here I am playing the part of baby bed again. Luckily he’s ok in his cot overnight but in the day I can’t put him down, he even hates the pram and car seat too.

@TheBestSpoon i hope it works for you if you try it! 🤞🏼

Really glad to find this thread. My baby is six and a half months and hit the regression just before he turned four months. In the past 13 or so weeks, the longest stretch he has managed is three hours and it’s usually hourly wake ups. We had one insane night a couple of weeks ago where he woke every ten minutes between 11pm-3am.

I'm trying to remain positive but it is pretty soul destroying. I now feel such a sense of dread every evening. I feel like we have tried absolutely everything and just have to accept that this is how he is.

@scott2609 that sounds so tough - 10 minutes between wake ups 🤯 sounds like you’re doing so well to even try to remain positive! I really hope it passes soon for you. How did he sleep before the regression?

He was pretty good before the regression 😩Never slept through, but we would regularly get a six hour stretch out of him. He is just the lightest bloody sleeper. He keeps rolling onto his side this week and it just wakes him immediately. Good luck all for the night ahead!

Oh, that sounds horrendous @scott2609, really hope it improves soon.

Bit of an odd one here - DS fell asleep feeding late afternoon yesterday, then didn't have his usual 5:30/6 nap so we put him to bed as early as DS1's routine allowed (8:15 asleep). All was going well until 5 (just two wake ups at 11:45 and 1, which is really good), when he wouldn't go back to sleep. Leaky nappy meaning a whole clothes change didn't help... Eventually got him back down at 6:40, then fell asleep myself. Woke up at 8:45(! - I've not slept past 8 for YEARS) to find DH and DS1 had already gone to work and nursery and DS2 was wide awake staring at me! No idea how long he'd been awake. Just had lots of fun putting him down for his nap, but who knows if that was because he was undertired, overtired, or out of sync with his normal feed times... He'd generally have his bottle after this nap, but I ended up giving him it before as he was properly screaming, but he then fell asleep after only taking 2oz. So no clue where that leaves me for feeding and sleeping the rest of the day - guess we'll just have to wing it and see!

Hope everyone else had a good night.

So the past couple nights haven’t been awful! Just 1 or two wake ups which is amazing, BUT the new thing is that it’s taking ages again 😩 we were so efficient before! Wake, boob, back to sleep, no problem. Now it’s a 1.5 hour process - he’ll eat from one side and fall asleep, then I can either put him down and he wakes up in half hour again to have the other side, or hold him until he’s ready for it, then he’ll eat the other boob and fall asleep properly, but by then I’m too nervous to transfer him too soon so I keep holding him for a little while to make sure he’s really asleep.

@GinnyBee that sounds frustrating! I also have to hold DD for a while until she falls into a deeper sleep before putting her down. Thankfully the last couple of nights have been a bit better for us. Just 2 wake ups last night although she hasn’t been going down until quite late.
hope you all have an ok night tonight!

The last couple of nights were better for us, only 2 or 3 wake ups with a five hour stint in there somewhere. But then last night it went to pot again - up at 11, 1:30, 2 and from 5 until 6:45 - @GinnyBee, I feel your pain with the long wake ups. Eventually collapsed back into bed and was woken by the bin men coming way earlier than usual at 7:45 so had to chase them down the road with our bin bags! Not the best morning. I have no idea why some nights are so much worse than others - he had a bit more naptime yesterday so maybe that?! Glad you're doing a bit better @bubblepond - two wake ups sounds good to me at the moment...