5 month old won't sleep HELP

[Geordielass91]

Hi I know people ask for help for this akot but!!!
My 5 month old little girl was the best sleeper from about 6weeks old she slept most nights a solid 7 hours! I know we were very lucky but a few weeks ago she started waking more for feeds so I upped her to 7oz but over the last few weeks she is waking more and more through the night and now it can be every 20 mins!
So we have always had a good night time routine bath bottle story sleep she has always fell asleep on me being rocked until last week I put her in her next to me I keep my hand on her chest and she falls asleep like that she will sleep a few hours then is up and will not resettle in her next to me she will only sleep on me.or my husband then when put back into her cot she is waking almost straight away or after 20mins when her dummy falls out... We have tried to fall asleep with our dummy but she will not settle as soon as we get her back out she falls straight back to sleep on us
She naps during the day but again only on me! She will nap in the pram but as soon as it stops she wakes same as in the car!
Please any help for a very tired mammy.

Solidarity with my 5 week old currently snoozing on my chest 😂 was sleeping reasonably, waking up twice. Tonight it was 11, 12:30, 2 (ended up in our bed this point, 4 (then pooed everywhere then peed everywhere), fed again at 5. I'll pop him back down and can guarantee he'll be awake again within the hour 😴. Only naps on my during day so can't nap then.

From 6 months you can do some gentle sleep training (if you want to). I followed a course with my son at that age where the ultimate aim is to get them to settle themselves to sleep when they're awake in their cot, and not rely on rocking or feeding etc. That way, when they wake up in the night they can get themselves back off to sleep without your help. There wasn't any crying it out but there will be a bit of whinging. It's essentially doing a little bit less each night to get them to sleep. So if you started by feeding them to sleep then you can rock them, and if you're rocking them then you can put them onto your bed and pat them, and then transfer that to the cot and so on until you're simply holding their hand or looking at them as reassurance before they go to sleep. You can then "make it to the end" by saying "night night" and walking out of the room whilst they're awake, and they will fall asleep by themselves. It's easier to practice this with daytime naps to start with and then you can move onto the night.

This was transformational for my son's sleep. He went from waking hourly to sleeping 12 hours. I wouldn't have made it back to work otherwise, I was on my knees!

Sleep deprivation is awful so 💐💐💐

Sounds like the 4 month sleep regression to me - we had a very similar situation: a great sleeper until that regression hit and the situation never improved on its own!

We used the Ferber method for both sleep training and gently weaning off of night feeds. Within a few days it worked a treat. It was certainly hard and a fairly unpleasant experience but our thought process was that getting our son the consistent sleep he needed was the priority and it was worth the short term upset to achieve that!

If Ferber doesn’t feel right for you, there are loads of sleep training options out there if you choose to do it. Best of luck xx