Please tell me it gets better…

[Fleur240]

DD is 4 and a half months old and we have been going through the dreaded 4 month sleep regression! Started with her catnapping in the day and then started to affect her night sleep. Multiple wakings, basically after every sleep cycle! Then two weeks ago she started to consolidate her naps and was having at least one long nap a day (1 1/2 - 2 hours) alongside an hour long nap and a couple of cat naps. Great! Night wakings also started to calm down and she dropped to one night feed. Fantastic!

However, she has been swaddled from two weeks old up until yesterday as she has started to roll onto her side from her back and I don’t want her rolling onto her belly whilst swaddled. We have been using the Tommee tippee swaddles, so yesterday I took both her arms out for all her naps and overnight. Disaster! 30 minute naps on the dot and 12 wake ups between going down at 7:30 and her feed at 12! And then I lost count of the number of wake ups from after the night feed to this morning. Each wake up I gave her her dummy and she settled fairly quickly but was then literally waking every 10/20 minutes 😭. Please tell me she’ll get used to not being swaddled?!

Also starting to wonder if the dummy is becoming more of an issue than a solution as I feel when she wakes she’s crying out for her dummy, which she is knocking out with her hands now they are free 🙈. Should I get rid of the dummy too and see if she will self soothe with her hands? Or would that be too much all at once?

This age is SO difficult, but yes, it will pass. 3 year olds don’t tend to need to be swaddled 😆

she’s still very young for hard sleep training but what you can do is encourage her to self soothe so that she doesn’t wake in between sleep cycles confused about where she is. So gently shush her, keep your hand on her tummy, rock her slightly in the cot rather than taking her in and out. Do you have white noise and black out blinds?

This was the very worst period of baby sleep for both of mine so you have all my sympathy.

Thanks for your reply @Namerchanger1 She goes down in her cot awake at nap time and bedtime and has done this since she was six weeks old and she used to just roll over and go to sleep. Oh the luxury 🤣. Now with her arms out she’s waving them around, rubbing her eyes, knocking her dummy out or even taking it out and playing with it and then cries 😂 I don’t pick her up out of the cot, I put her dummy back in and she drifts back off but I’m starting to think the dummy is causing more issues so I’ll try the hand on her tummy and gently rocking her in her cot, and we have white noise and a blackout blind.

I don’t have a solution but have been having the same trouble getting arms out of the Tommee tippee bags! Mine is 17 weeks and not rolling yet but thought I’d try and get ahead whilst sleep was good a few weeks ago and test arms out and gave up after a week because he was doing everything you described.
We’re now going through the many wake ups of the regression so I’ve been too scared to attempt it again at night but have started one nap a day with arms out (the rest of his naps are contact to get longer than 40 minutes 🥴) and he seems to have got better at staying asleep. Of course this could all change when I try it at night but 🤞🏼

Hi @Tommymummyft sorry to hear you are having some of the same issues! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you 🤞