Has anyone experienced an improvement not too long after 5 months?!

[Creamcakesandpastries]

I’m looking for a glimmer of hope to cling on to. Baby is still up every night every 2-3 hours. I know it’s within the range of normal, but it’s starting to kill me having such broken sleep. I BF and express enough so that my husband can do one night feed probably 2 nights in 3, but that’s just one night feed out of 3 or 4 and usually only gets me around 5 hours away from the baby if I’m lucky. We’ve had a few freak occurrences where he’s slept for 6, 7, even 8 hours, but this has never become an established norm. My body also doesn’t help as I wake up even when I’m not with the baby and can usually hear him crying downstairs with my husband.

Right now I’m up doing yet another feed, I’m full of cold and 3yo has been ill for a few days too. I’m crying and have shouted ‘grrrrr!!!’ at the baby for not settling back to sleep, whinging and throwing himself around while I’m trying to see if he’s got any wind stopping him from settling.

This is not to mention the amount of whinging he does all day which just shreds my nerves.

Is there any hope whatsoever that one night soon he will just start consistently sleeping longer at night? Or are babies who wake a lot at 5 months set to stay the same for a good while yet?

For daytime naps I work on wake windows of 2 hours, but he usually only sleeps half an hour at a time with the odd longer stretch which either happens on its own or when I resettle him after the half hour. I can cope with short naps if only he will sleep longer at night!

Life at the moment feels like a treadmill that I’m chained to, it won’t stop so I have to keep running, I’m too tired to run but I have no choice 😔

I know a lot of people have it worse and I shouldn’t complain, but I’m just so tired of being tired 😭

Following but no positive story I'm afraid.

My baby could sleep 8 hours at a time over night until the four month regression, then fell to 3-4 hours and has gradually moved to every hour! Now 6.5 months. I think it may kill me as I get max 45 mins sleep at a time... the only thing which settles him is breast feeding and he goes ballistic if my husband picks him up. Honestly feel like I'm going insane. He's a good napper in the day and generally a happy chap.

@Babyenroute oh no that sounds absolutely horrendous 🙁 I just don’t understand how it’s possible to survive with such disrupted sleep 😭

It feels like slow torture doesn't it. But somehow manage through the next day. Hope your situation improves soon. I'm really regretting not being more determined to teach him to self settle- or at least settle with someone other than me!

Hi OP, my DD is 6 months and I'm afraid sleep is terrible here too. What you said about the whinging and naps completely resonates with me.
My DD actually self settles at the beginning of naps and at night time! She just can't seem to stay asleep and once awake can't go back to sleep without help. On occasion it can be every 30 minutes. I'm formula feeding though so DH can help a bit more.

My health visitor has suggested I leave it 5 minutes to let her try and settle herself, and to try settling by patting and shushing. Will try and give it a go. Have you already tried this?

My DD's sleep was pretty poor until we moved her into her room at 6 months exactly! She now sleeps through until 6am with one feed midway through the night. Fingers crossed it'll be the same for you!

Ooh living the self-settling dream! My son doesn’t quite self-settle, for naps we use white noise and sort of keep our hands on him until he drifts off, and during the night he feeds to sleep. He has gone to sleep in the day or at bedtime with just white noise a few times, but sometimes that’s not enough on its own. He wakes after 30 mins during the day and 2-3 hours at night so I’m thinking that would be one cycle (if I’m right in thinking cycles are longer at night)? I always wait a few minutes to give him the chance to go back to sleep in the day, and he has done a few times but more often doesn’t, though sometimes if I can get to him quickly enough he will go back to sleep with my hands on him again. At night I always just feed him when he wakes because I assume he is actually hungry after 2-3 hours (feeds are 2-3 hours apart during the day too). I guess ‘hands on him and white noise’ is equivalent to patting and shushing?! What a minefield it all is eh?

Well funny you should say this as my mum said transitioning to a new bed might magically do the trick. Our setup is currently still moses basket in the living room and one of us sleeps on the couch next to him (mostly me but my husband will often do the first leg and a bottle of EBM then get me up for the next feed and I take over til morning). But he is almost the full length of the moses basket now and I’m mindful that he could roll soon (though probably not, lazy toad!), so considering moving to the next to me crib. Not sure whether to stick with living room for this or move to our room though, because once he’s in our room it will probably mean everyone awake every time he wakes up as he is LOUD.

Yes I think having space to roll has definitely helped my DD to sleep better. She wasn't really rolling properly on her playmat but the first time we put her in her cot in her room to sleep she rolled straight over onto her tummy and went to sleep! Maybe your little one is the same?