4-5 month olds sleep club, - come and join..........

[SnowlightMcKenzie]

Hiya,

There have been so many threads lately about babies who were beginning to sleep better, but suddenly hitting this regression to newborn hell.

So I thought I would start a support thread for us all to compete whinge about how little sleep we are all getting, and tips on how to cope.

Baby Starlight was up just twice last night, but the previous night it was 6 times, and because of that I kept putting off going to bed at all last night, so even though it wasn't too bad, I still had hardly any sleep

last night sucked awake every 2 hours again. i started weaning (blw) last week so am wondering whether the few bits and pieces of new foodstuffs are disturbing him? it must be a strange sensation when your body has to assimilate new things...

am happy to continue with it though as DS is clearly ready and enjoying it; also, he seems to be taking more milk than ever before so i'm not worried there.

Isn't it funny how things are relative cyteen. Your 'every 2 hours' was a bad night for you, and yet my 'up 7 times' which is more frequent than that was a good night .

Hello can I join you lovely ladies on this thread - am delighted to have found you as came here today looking for virtual tea and sympathy!
DD is 20 weeks on Friday, was an angel sleeping 5,6,7 hours a night up until week 12 and then completely reverted to waking at LEAST every 3 hours and often more often. Waking every 3 hours for a feed I can handle, but she also has lost any skill she had at all to self settle. As a smaller baby she would just go to sleep in the cot but now she screams and screams, sometimes getting so over tired she screams on the breast, screams being rocked, screams lying next to me etc etc. Last couple of nights she has woken at 4am and not gone back to sleep even though I can see she is tired... and also woken the whole house including DD1. Am dreading this if she does it on a school day.... She's not that great at sleepinf in the day either. Any ideas greatfully received!!

Hello can'tsleepwon'tsleep - I think it's been about 2-3 weeks that I've been trying to feed at the same kind of times in the day, but I've been doing the same sort of bedtime routine for ages now. DS is 5 months and 1 week - his sleep had always been terrible. It seemed to sort of get better around 2 and a bit months (1 3-hour stretch) then plunged into chaos again when he hit 3 months. So we didn't have anything to regress from at 4-5months!

hi girlies posted for first time yesterday, my ds was up loads last night, thinking he will never be full!!!!!! spoke to health visitor about fact that i'd started weaning him and she was all for it, only been giving him breakfast and tea but she said to start 3 meals as now 24 weeks, he ate loads at teatime and went down at 7.45 this evening (usually goes at 6) going to do dream feed again tonight and will hope for some sleep tonight.
as for rountine i don't really have one, just follow his lead (is this good/bad?) seems to always have moring nap and likes one early afternoon, but if we're out and about this changes.

Lionie What gorgeous girls you have, DD1 in her fairy princess outfit is just to die for, a heart breaker! I think there is a definite DP nose on both of them too!!

AnnVan - Seb is the same age as Elizabeth and she has been hell since Dec too, phase phase phase!

My DD had a brilliant week all of last week, the weekend was a bit dodgy but she's back into it again thus far. She's been falling asleep naturally a lot earlier than before, so she's in bed a lot earlier. I've been successfully giving her a dreamfeed at 8pm and 10pm but at the weekend and monday she still woke up at 2am (on the dot on all three days ) so don't know if it's really making any difference or not.

bunnybumblesmum - i don't follow a daytime routine either - but have had one at night for ages ( i think that's common to this thread!)

rain rain - lots of good ideas on this thread - here is my tuppence worth:
dd is also an erratic napper during the day - the only one i can rely on is about 2hours after she has woken up. she falls asleep easily in her pram or when feeding, but sometimes i have to 'help' her get to sleep when i notice the tired signs, otherwise we have a total meltdown situation.
i swaddle her in the same blanket for naps (her arms flail when she is tired), use white noise (kitchen extractor is good - and it's the darkest room in the house), walk, rock, pat, kiss face, rub bridge of nose, whatever it takes - but i always say "shhh ... sleepy time". sometimes she goes into her cot still awake and drifts off ... other times i have to repeat process, but it is better to do this than have aforementioned meltdown - because then it's near impossible to settle her.
night time is like most posters here- 6pm bath, dressed, feed, walk, close blinds "goodnight trees", then we read a story or two in the bedroom ( i finish with a book called "hello moon") she is usually really sleepy by then and goes down between 7.30 - 8 (sometimes i have to use the 'nap' techniques tho)
she has been getting better (typically up 3 times over the last week) but i think a lot of the sleep problems at this age are a mix of growth spurt, teething and developmental milestones (thank you mother nature!)
I plan to teach dd to self settle, but am waiting until i am less exhuasted (do whatever it takes until this stage is over, methinks) ... have i mentioned "The No Cry Sleep Solution" yet? (arf!)

I have no tips at all to offer but am taking some solace in the fact that we are not alone! Like you my DD was sleeping 'like a baby' as a newborn but ever since the new year it has been much much worse. Last night I had both her and DH shouting at me because she wouldn't go back to sleep - do either of them really think that this is my idea of fun!

Liff that's awful. We often have arguments in the wee hours as well though.

Last night wasn't great - he fell asleep at ten woke at ten thirty, stayed awake till one then woke again four thirty, and was really hard to resettle. So I was doing the jack-in-the-box act for about an hour. At least DP's alarm didn't wake him this morning.

Evening all

Looks like things are settling down for some of us - hooray!

I have had a bit of a nightmare. Tuesday night I started vomiting horrendously. DH is abroad and there was no one to help so I had to struggle on, feeding DD between trips to the toilet. I went to bed with her last night at 7.30 and wearily stuffed my nipple in her mouth every time she moved!

So, not great here. Can't wait for tomorrow when DH comes home...

hope you're feeling better tomorrow skimty and its jsut a 48 hour thing. Its horrible when you are ill with children as all you want to do is crawl into bed and die quietly!!

Leoine - sounds liek things have been up and down but i hope tonight is not too bad for you.

DS1 a bit more settled at night ie less wake ups but when he does wake, he's up for 2 hours at a time and refuses to close his eyes. he stares around the room even though its pitch black!! Either that or he chews on his fist cooing to himself for hours - i keep trying to stuff a breast in his mouth but once he's had enough, there's no way he'll have more - so unlike ds1 who used me as a comforter for months!!

Oh god, I thought I was done here, but I'm back.
Compared to me, most of you are having a marvellous time of it at the moment - a good night for us at the moment is one where DS only needs resettling every 1.5-2 hours. About every other night, or 1 night in 3, he needs resettling every 10-45 mins. It's completely ridiculous.
I really don't know how to solve it - he seems to wake every single time he moves his arms, but he won't stay swaddled now, so that's out too. Really no idea what the solution is, it's getting so depressing, particularly as about once a month he sleeps through for 4-5 nights and then goes back to sleep hell!

hopefully we're doing one step forward, two steps back here. We had a couple of decent nights, now the last two have been terrible again. Last night he just didn't want to resettle each time he woke. And of course this is on the night that I'm ill from some fish I ate. So all I wanted to do was sleep (once I'd finished being sick)

Gosh ladies, you're all being sick! Hope that you are better by now Skimty and AnnVan.

Hopefully - how old is yours now? What do you try for resettling? Have you not got a non-stretchy blanket that you could swaddle in, so that he can't get out of it?

I think that last night was slightly better here. Ds went to bed at 7. Woke at 7:30 and 8:30 (he hadn't fed well during the day because of a nasty cold, so I was expecting this), but then slept 8:45-11:45. I know that he also fed at 3:40, but what I can't remember is whether he fed in between those 2 or not. If not then he managed over 3 hours in one stretch, after his first sleep of the night, which is virtually unheard of!
He had only had 1.5 hrs sleep all day long though (much like you Leonie) and had had lots of fresh air in the afternoon, so was obv tired.
He fed another couple of times after the 3:40 one, and then got up for the day at 6:!5, so still some room for improvement there.
Fingers crossed he can improve further on it tonight.

Skimty and AnnVan hope you feel better soon. I had winter puking disease back in January and it was horrible, but at least I had DH around to help.

I've gone from nearly being drummed out of the group to being elected lifetime president

Two nights before last now hazy but involved waking up every 10 min to an hour - she just doesn't seem to settle at all any more Had small cry in small hours night before last, just because seems to be deteriorating and unending. Luckily DH is supportive but try not to disturb him because of work. Usually manage 7 am - 9 am sleep which keeps me going for the day.

Last night she had a temp and lots of crying. Calpol = projectile vomit. Managed fitful hour in our bed but she would basically only sleep on me so about 2 am came downstairs and sat on laptop while she slept on me. Back to bed 6 am and managed a couple of hours but she won't nap for long/without being held. More crying from me (1) when she seemed loads better, from relief and built-up stress and (2) when she wouldn't go down long enough for me to eat anything after 16 hrs with only water. Cup of tea has made me feel better (hoorah for being British!) and mum coming over in a bit - she thinks to take us to see my gran but actually (mwa ha ha!) so I can nap and they can look after DD.

Blurgh, up once again at 3am, and also at 5am but at least she went back to sleep rather than starting her day at 5am like she has been.

I've been doing a dream feed at 10:30-11:00pm but she's still getting me up four hours later, is there ANY way that doing the dream feed is detrimental to a full night sleep??

Hope everyone who's been poorly is feeling better - I'm not out of the club yet. Nights had been getting better, naps longer, then last night was pretty rubbish again and naps have pinged back to 35-40mins over the last two days. Plus at midnight dh woke me up by grabbing at my hand - apparently he was dreaming and thought I was ds and was trying to roll me over . If he hadn't I would have had 4 hours (grrr). But I am determined to remain optimistic and not plunge back into despair which is what I always do as soon as we seem to go backwards! Onwards, upwards, forwards - things have got to get better for all of us...

Lollipop I keep debating with dp whether the dreamfeed is worth it or not, but I just can't decide.

We've tried swaddling in everything we can lay our hands on, he just gets out of it, but gets even more stressed, as his hands are stuck by his face. Grrr.

Have also had vomiting bug, randomly - dp had to take yesterday off work as I was too dizzy to take care of ds properly.

I'm praying for a half decent night tonight - ds had a massive poo explosion earlier which may have been causing him discomfort last night. Also going to set up the air bed in the spare room so if he's a nightmare we can take turns dealing with it!