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

another week of no sleep for me and added to Easter holiday hell and I was on my knees by Friday, so we did the weekend thing again so I got another couple of half decent nights. when DH is with him, he is only waking up once......I'm considering putting him in his own room now (only three weeks short of the magic six months mark), however, we are in a three bed house, and I have a DD who is nearly 2 and a DS who is nearly seven.

Having a major dilemma about whether the baby goes in with DD and risk him waking her up if he cries, or putting DD in with DS, but I'm not sure it's fair on DS1 having his baby sis in with him, and his room is an alladin's cave of illicit toys so she would never go to bed and would just be in amongst everything....

what to do...what to do?

When will this ever get better???

DS took until nearly 10pm to settle last night with lots of tears and stress (both of us!).

Woke for a feed at 1am and 4am but took an hour to resettle. He didn't actually cry but grumbled and ga-ga'd until 5am!! But at least it was a 3 hr stretch rather then every 2hrs like the night before.

So....we have decided to try and move him out tonight . We were planning on him going in with DD (3yo) but have decided on the spare room for now so they don't disturb each other with their nocturnal shenanigans! DD can sleep through DS crying but because she has been getting up at all hours too (though not for a week [fingers crossed emoticon]), we don't want her waking DS up if he's asleep.

Daisy I don't envy you having to choose which room.....tricky one. I think I'd be inclined to opt for DD's room and see how it goes.

Oh, Smurfette that sounds miserable. At least my DS generally settles well at 7pm and stays down until 10ish; it's just between 11.30 and 7am that he's rubbish!

We moved DS back in with us because for a while it seemed as though he slept better with the comfort of having us close by but I don't know if that's the case any more. I'll be interested to hear what happens with your DCs if you shift them out (although you're both making me think twice about having more than one DC now!)

Well, moved DS from our room on Tues and had the best night EVER! He went straight to sleep at 7.45pm, then woke at 11.30pm and 2.30am but that was it! He then slept from 3am until 8.15am. I was soooo pleased!!

Then he went and got bloody chickenpox

Poor little mite was awake every 2 hours again last night.

I'm now praying it passes quickly and he (we!) don't suffer too much.

Wow Smurfette, a 5 hour stretch; you lucky buggers! But I can't even imagine what chickenpox must be like with a baby, I went to pieces when DS just had a cold. At least that's one horrible childhood illness out of the way for good now though.

DS has had a couple of reasonable nights this week where he's only woken two or three times and settled back again nice and quick but I did lose the plot the other afternoon when I'd only had about four hours sleep in total during the night and then he refused to nap for longer than half an hour at a time during the day so I couldn't catch up then either. I was seriously considering packing in the breast feeding at that point.

I think it's the unpredictability that does my head in most; one night he'll wake twice and be really good, the next it'll be hours of howling. As far as I can tell, his nap routine and how he spends his days has absolutley no bearing on his nights whatsoever.

Everyone keeps telling me that it'll get better at six months when he's weaning but there are plenty of threads on MN that make me doubt that that will be the case!

Hope DS gets better soon Smurfette.

adopts zombie monotone< P L E A S E C A N I J O I N ?

Max is feeding four times a night atm and I am quite literally falling to pieces - have to glue skin back on with prescription creams! I'm not expecting any great solution to it, just a nice soothing pat on the arm and reassurance that it will end. I don't remember DD ever doing this. Help!

Hello MrsHD. I am watching your other thread with desperation interest as it is what DS is like! He feeds 2 hourly most nights but what is most frustrating is that he goes longer between feeds during the day (sometimes 4-5 hours) or just fusses and faffs during his daytime feeds as if he's not that hungry.

Feralgirl I really do know what you are feeling. The unpredictability is the same here and like you, I feel that his daytime naps have no bearing on how his nights go. I have even kept a sleep log to see how they compare but it is no clearer.

Also like you, I have quite seriously considered stopping breast feeding for my own sanity. However, DS won't take a bottle of ebm or formula (but that's another thread!!) so that isn't an option anyway!

Thankfully his chickenpox is fairly mild and hasn't made the nights any worse.

People keep telling me that it will just "click" for him.....let's hope so before I end up going completely nuts and DP leaves me because I'm such a grumpy old cow!!

I've just realised he has his next set of jabs tomorrow, so I think we're just doomed for the next few nights really! He's unsettled today and not napping well, so I hope he's just going through a phase, peaking and will settle down again, for a wee while at least. He's so damn gorgeous, fortunately!

Hello!! I've been lurking on this thread for weeks, semi-hoping that I'd find a cure for DD's sleeping hades and I could leap on here wearing my knickers over a pair of old tights and tell you all how it's done...but no such luck Mind if I join anyway? I'll only have a whinge but I'll sympathise with all of you too!!

Hello Chulita!!

Sadly still no miraculous solution here either but it does make me feel a bit better knowing there are others going through the same torture thing.

I did wonder if the 2-3hrly wakings and therefore feeds meant that DS is getting all his calories at night? His daytime feeds are so fussy and sometimes he just doesn't seem hungry. I have tried to soothe him back to sleep without feeding him but find that even if I'm successful, he still wakes an hour later, gets more upset so I end up feeding him anyway!

Can I jump in and ask a quick question fellow sufferers. DS2 is 18wks and some nights goes down at 7 with a dream feed at 10.30 then feeds at 3 ish and up at 6.30 7ish but most of the time its awake 2hourly at night. Should I drop the DF maybe its waking him too much and just go with the flow or percevere and hope thats its some weird developmental thing and in a couple of weeks he will change again. Am a bit scared that if I dont DF he will wake loads more. He is BF by the way apart form the DF which is formula.

Hi Starlight, sorry, I haven't read the 17 (!) pages of the thread - were your co-sleeping? I am worrying - as I'm sure everyone else is - that ds is increasing his night time feeds as I'm giving him such easy access by co-sleeping. But the alternative is so unappealing. I was quite pleased with co-sleeping as a solution, but it seems now he's gone from one 4 or 5 am feed after being in the moses basket for most of the night to countless snacks that I sleep through....and of course everyone else tells me I'm making a rod for my own back etc etc etc. Is it just a phase????

Starlight you have given me hope!!

JamInMyWellies I am thinking of starting a DF! DS has slept from 8pm til 1am for the last 3 nights and I was wondering if a DF would mean he did his 5hr stretch from 11pm?? Now I'm not so sure.......can only try I suppose.

stainesmassif I have to admit that I stopped co-sleeping because DS was feeding every hour then not feeding much in the day (he was about 12 weeks). The No-Cry Sleep Solution has some good advice for reducing night feeds if you want to continue co-sleeping.

Hi smurfette - he's currently enjoying a half hour breakfast! will order ncss - cheers

Thanks starlight - afraid i'm guilty of two things, I think I fall asleep while he's on the boob as much as he falls asleep on it IYSWIM, and I still love those middle of the night cuddles. I must be strong. Thanks for the advice.

aaaah, starlight, i love you! i constantly swing between listening to the people who tell me i'm storing up trouble for the future and listening to myself - before i know it he'll be a stinky horrible teenager and won't want to go anywhere near me!!

Hmm...I had a week of DD sleeping from 6pm til 3am - lovely stuff, I felt semi-normal again! Now she's back to waking at midnight, then about 4am and then at 6am and crying til I pick her up. Ok, so it's a massive improvement on a few weeks ago when she was up every 1.5hrs but I was really enjoying being able to sleep!! Argh! Hopefully it's the 5mth growth spurt, she'd only put on 3oz in the last 3wks so she's due one. [sigh] Just having a bleary-eyed Saturday morning whinge...coffee anyone?

Make mine a strong one!!

Up at midnight, 2am, 4am, 6.15am.........[gibbering idiot emoticon]

Hello, another newcomer to the thread. starlight pointed me in your direction...

DD -first child - is 20 weeks and previously slept til about 2 or 3 before having a feed then up every couple of hours thereafter. She's BF, sleeps in a sidecar crib next to me, off to sleep at 7.30 after a fairly regular routine of bath, milk, music on the monitor, then into bed with us after the first feed. Last couple of weeks she's woken up when we go to bed (doesn't matter if that's 10.30, 11, 11.30 or whatever) and then very very hard to settle, often stays attached to the boob while she's asleep and wakes up as soon as I try to take her off (have tried the PPO to very little avail!). Her worst night was awake from 11.30 til 5.30 alternating yelling and feeding, but kicking and wriggling during the feeds.

I've taken to trying earplugs so that I don't automatically wake up at her first snuffle, but if she's awake when we go to bed that doesn't work. She's very keen on flinging her legs around when she wakes and it can be hard to get her latched on properly as she arches her back and pulls away.

I suspect this is quite similar to a lot of people's experiences! We're pondering putting her in her own room to start with so that any movements we make going to bed are less likely to wake her, but I don't like the idea of her having to get really upset and needing to yell loudly to be heard when she wakes up. I keep blaming it on different things - growth spurts, change of the clocks, first tooth coming through but each excuse blends into the next one... We have the NCSS but have yet to be brave enough to do the sleep log, it would be too depressing!

Hello, can I join too? DD is 25 weeks and never been that good with the whole sleeping at night thing. But she did generally go down at 7.30 after a bath and feed and then woke for a feed at 10.30, 1am, 3am then around 6am.

Recently however she is having a waking period at either 1 or 3am, no crying just lots of laughing, gurgling and generally being very pleased with herself when she rolls over or manages to put her feet in her mouth! We co-sleep and thought we may be disturbing her so tried putting her back in her cot after feeds for a bit but were woken at 3am every night after DD worked her way to the top of the cot (which is next to the bed) so she could shout and peer at us throught the bars.

This is my first, I was completley convinced she would be sleeping through by 12 weeks as I've been reliably informed by almost every one I know with children that this is just what happens. I've been EBF and the standard advice I have been getting from them since she was 3 months old is "Have you tried baby rice"........beause........"maybe she's just hungry?"

We have the NCSS to but can't bring myself to do the log either, it would be depressing but am also too tired to actually fill it in

Yes I keep getting the "maybe he's hungry", "wean him" lines and am tiring of explaining that whilst I know he's a big baby, I don't think he's ready for weaning yet. He still has a strong tongue thrust reflex for starters!

He was awake every hour from 1am until 4.30am last night and I was at the end of my tether again. When he'd only fed an hour previous, DP tried to settle him or we tried to see if he'd self-settle after being left to grumble a bit but he just got angrier. Nothing worked except feeding. He seemed to comfort feed most of the time though and was only really hungry at his 1st 1am feed.

So I'm persisting with the self-settling daytime naps today in the hope that if we can get those right, the nights will just follow!!

At the moment he is going off after about 10 mins of complaining (not proper crying) but is only napping for about 40mins. But I'm not going to stress too much about the length of the nap....the important thing for me is that he gets himself to sleep without feeding!

yes, early weaning being suggested and blithely ignored here, too.