At my wits end with my 4 and a half month old son - looking for both solidarity and tips/tricks as it feels like we have tried everything in the book and nothing seems to work.
To give some context:
- Our little boy had colic and has never slept well. The colic cries are finally over but have been replaced by sleep regression. Since he was born we’ve had just two weeks where it felt sleep was on the up (he was sleeping a nice 4/5 hour chunk at the start of the night then 2 hour intervals. Then we hit regression at 3 months and naps went to 33 minutes exactly and night sleep has been getting progressively worse with barely a 2.5 hour first stretch and 45 minute (but more often 30 minute stints) after that. I feel like I am able to barely get an hour of sleep myself at time. It’s now been 8 weeks of this.
- He is very well developed for his age - rolls and sits almost independently.
- We have had a consistent bedtime routine since he was 2 months old (space light, bath, feed, book, sleep sack, bed). We use a white noise machine and he has a dummy. Recently the I’ve wondered if the dummy is causing issues as it seems we are just playing ping pong with that from his first wake up till morning. We have tried to go cold turkey and the screaming was unbearable so we have given it back. He is also now rolling so isn’t in a swaddle.
- Bedtime is not at the same time each night simply because we follow wake windows and try to make sure he’s had 2 hours since last nap. Usually we are pretty good at it being within 30 mins of 8pm though so I don’t think this is the issue. His wake up is very consistent at 7.30am - even if we have not been sleeping I open the blinds and start the morning at this time so I can make sure his naps are attempted well. We tried an earlier bedtime and all that happened was his longer stretch meant we got no sleep and then he wanted to start the day earlier.
- He has 4/5 of the 30/40min naps a day. His wake windows are around 1.5/2 hours.
- He goes to sleep in his cot and doesn’t need rocking to sleep. I worked on this at 3 months thinking it would be the magic answer but it doesn’t seem to have helped with the frequent wakes.
- Naps are hit and miss with how easily he will go down. We try to do one in his big boy cot a day and often more. He naps well in the buggy and the car but still very rarely extends the nap past 30 minutes which means I’m completely exhausted spending most of the day getting him to sleep and trying to rush round in the short nap time to do things in the house/eat. It’s not long enough for me to sleep too…!
- he is ebf - feeding is another challenge as he has reflux and now is teething a bit and very distractable during the day. I am quite strict about feeding through the night. I will use whatever else I can to settle before feeding him if it’s been less that 3 hours since the last feed. I usually try to make sure he only has 2 feeds each night. He is well over his ideal weight and definitely gets enough plus I know he can go through 5+ hours at night without food as he’s done it before. The only time I make an exception for this is when he is ill or if I think he’s having a growth spurt (which usually correlates with more feeding in the day too!)
- we have resorted to co sleeping for some stretches of the night and sometimes that has worked to keep him sleeping longer but in the last 3 weeks even doing that doesn’t keep him sleeping and is even worse for us as he’s writhing and crying right next to me.
- we have tried a bottle of formula before bedtime routine and this did nothing.
- we don’t feed to sleep except during the 2 night feeds.
I feel like I’ve researched and tried so much and on paper he is quite good - going down in cot without rocking, not feeding to sleep etc but it’s just not possible to get him to stay sleeping. And he still cries a lot - He just can’t seem to work out self soothing and so as soon as the dummy falls out he will wake at the next cycle. Is it really just a case of riding this out till he learns the skill of self soothing (and when might that be)?
My mental health is so fraught from lack of sleep (am getting some support for this from HV). I am genuinely thinking that the pain of Ferber/
formal cry it out now might be better than continuing like this because I feel like my bond with him during the day is being so impacted by lack of sleep. If I’m tired he must be too and I find it so hard to be smiley and happy with him when I am a literal zombie. I think he is developmentally able to learn how to do it - I have read a lot of people doing this at 4 months with success. I wonder if I do it now will I have to do it again later too?
His dad helps where he can but the screaming and crying is more often than not even worse if dad try’s to settle him. Taking a bottle is also very hit and miss and often results in a huge melt down if dad does it. It’s a lot of pressure for me.
Any advice, solidarity or ideas are very welcome. I feel so depressed that this is my reality and worn down after coming up to 5 months of just one thing to the next - I just want to enjoy him but without sleep everything is so horrible :(
Just didn’t imagine this first part would be this hard. I knew it would be bad but the lack of sleep makes you honestly feel completely out of control and at the end of your tether.
:(