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Baby wont sleep till midnight, screams for 3 hours

2 replies

BeRedBird · 09/12/2024 06:47

Looking for any advice or just knowledge that we aren't alone!

Baby girl is almost 6 months old. Exclusively breastfed.
From 1-4 months she would cry/scream between 9-11pm before going sleep between 11pm-midnight. She would then sleep until 5/6am, wake for a feed, and go down for another ~3 hours. This was manageable.

Since 4 months she will scream between 9pm and midnight. She won't go in her bassinet. Occasionally goes down being walked around and intermittently fed. She is then waking every 3 hours. For example last night went to bed at midnight, was up between 3-5.30, down again until 7, up between 7-8, then contact napping 8-10. Its so difficult.

We always do a routine of bath / change / food / story / white noise and have tried this from varying times from 7pm. Not matter when we start this she won't sleep until past 11pm. We have tried putting in cot, shushing, tapping etc but nothing really does the trick. We have also tried Ferber method for sleep training for 3 nights but she would absolutely scream and we couldnt tolerate it😱.

She resists daytime naps. We try to get her down at a 2-3 hour wake window. But she will often resist for 2+ hours and have a wake window of sometimes 6-9 hours and still be very alert. I swear this shouldnt be possible. Some days she does nap but it is just luck. She doesn't always show sleep queues and goes from 0 to 100 in a matter of minutes.
Some days she only has 9 hour sleep in a 24 period 🤣

She does have eczema which we are trying our best to control but this sleep issue did come before the eczema flared. Also teething with second tooth coming through now.

Our plan is to move her into her own room in a bigger cot to see if that helps. Otherwise just praying this is a phase which will improve with time. We feel like failures for her sleep being so bad but we do try our best! We are both also doctors so feel quite switched on regarding her eczema and general queues.

Anyone experiencing similar / have any advice? Much appreciated.

OP posts:
daffodilandtulip · 09/12/2024 06:53

Colic or milk allergy?

JustAFear · 09/12/2024 06:56

4 month sleep regression is totally normally and totally horrendous.

My second slept 12 hours a night straight through until 4 months, when he started waking hourly!

I think it can feel harder when you’re in a vaguely related profession, you feel like you should be able to address this. But the reality is, most of the frustrating phases babies go through are just natural phases.

Are you confident that she doesn’t have silent reflux or an allergy? Eczema and night screaming were the main symptoms for my first child who had CMPA. When she’s resisting naps, does she resist if held upright, are you always putting her down for a nap?

Apart from ruling those out, the only thing which helped for us was cosleeping. I looked in to it in as much detail as the internet can give, decided that in our situation I could set the bed up properly and cosleep safely. Certainly vastly safer than having to drive when exhausted.

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