Four month sleep regression aka exhausted mama

[Winebefore5]

My little one is just turning four months old and the last 4 nights they’ve been up every 2 hours. I’ve had a few successful “Pat and shush” back to sleep, but normally they’re needing picked up/ cuddles/ breastfed back to sleep. This is not a habit I want to start…but how the heck do I stop that from happening?

little one can be screaming the house down, waking up both parents and 4 year old sibling, my neighbour even commented on it yesterday.

how are we meant to be navigating sleep regressions?

I'm exhausted, pnd, and anaemic already.

Same thing happening here, I could have written this word for word... Commenting in the hope someone else has some good advice!

Ime, you can't. It's normal baby behaviour and most babies grow out of it, rather than it becoming a "habit". It is extremely tough when you're in the thick of it.

I breastfed my baby back to sleep everytime. No crying, just boobs and back to bed and it got better overtime. It was the fastest, easiest way to make sure we all got the most sleep possible.

If they need feeding or cuddles to get back to sleep and get upset without that, then it’s not starting a bad habit, it’s just giving them what they need at that time. Feeding to sleep is really natural for babies. Milk at night has melatonin to help babies to sleep and feeding through the night is essential for some babies until they’re a year old. If you want to move away from this then you could look at habit stacking but the four month regression is brutal for some babies and they need more help than others to get through it. Then try to change their sleep associations when their brain isn’t going through such a huge upgrade.

Solidarity though, my boy (and me) has struggled through the four month regression and I’m really hopeful that we’ve found a pattern now at 5.5 months which gets him 4 hour blocks of sleep.

My 4 month old was like this last week and I wasn’t sure if it was the sleep regression or she was a bit poorly but if I couldn’t settle her back to sleep then I co- slept (safely) with her as she’d drop back off like that. I always try to resettle her in her own cot first though as she’s my third and I really do think if you can try not to develop sleep associations that you’re not happy to continue then that’s better in the long run.

I would try to keep the sleep routine consistent as it was before but equally you dont want them waking up everyone in the house when you’ve got other kids so do whatever works to help them get back to sleep if they really won’t settle the usual way. I know it’s rough but if it’s any consolation it didn’t last long with my DD.