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

Can I join? Dd 18 weeks and has gone from feeding twice at night as a newborn to waking half hourly or so! She is a bit under the weather so I'm hoping in a few days to go back to her slightly better hourly wakings

She goes to bed very well around 7 after a bath and a snuggly bf then often starts to stir at 9. Then wakes for a feed about 10. She'll then hopefully do 2 hours before another feed although I often have to resettle after an hour. After that she wakes every sleep cycle pretty much. She just can't get herself over and back into sleep. We co-sleep but it doesn't seem to help! She isn't interested in comfot feeding (fast let-down issues so she only feeds if she's hungry). She'll pretty much always have an hour or so awake around 3 or 4 and has done that since she was born. I find she doesn't want to feed during this part of the night so is very difficult to get back off. She feeds again around 5 then if I'm lucky sleeps til 7 but usually it is 6ish.

Anyway shall catch up with the non sleeping stories soon. Bath time now!

I've been kipping at every available opportunity this last week so haven't been on for ages, hello fellow sufferers.

I too am fending off idiotic suggestions about introducing formula and giving baby rice from MiL, my mother and my grandmother. My mum laughed at me - and not in a nice way, in a "you're a daft first time parent" way - yesterday when I said I was determined for DS to be exclusively BF until 6mo, as per all advice.

The last week has been sheer hell: waking every two hours whether we're co-sleeping or not; refusing to settle between the hours of 2 and 4; feeding for two minutes and then going to sleep and then waking up as soon as he's laid down.

Also is just beginning to cut a tooth.

I am so scared that he's going to be one of those babies who doesn't sleep properly until he's 2; we're doing all the NCSS suggestions but to no avail.

Ah feralgirl, why does that make me feel reassured that I'm not alone? It shouldn't help me that you're having a challenging time too, but it strangely does! I doubt that helps you much though.....

Oh, it really does Staines! It's so nice to know we're not alone isn't it?

Indith, I've just read your post properly and realised that you and I are living parallel lives, doing exactly the same things at the same times!

I dunno whether people just lie about how their babies sleep but I haven't had a single RL conversation with anyone whose baby is as crap at night as DS. My mum and MiL claim that me my brother, DH and my SiL all slept brilliantly practically from day one and have no useful advice at all. All my friends, even those at BF group, all seem to have better sleepers than DS, despite doing insane things like keeping their babies up until 10.30 at night.

It makes me feel like such an evil cow when I think about how much more I would enjoy being a mother if only I wasn't so bastard tired all the time. I hate the fact that, in the wee small hours, I have even regretted having a baby and thought about how much easier my life would be without him. And I'm being thoroughly FOUL to poor DH at the moment because I'm exhausted and feeling as though I'm dealing with it all myself.

Thank you feralgirl, I made the mistake at our local mum's group of asking whether anyone had ever regretted having a baby and I may as well have dropped my trousers and pooed on the table for all the looks of utter disgust I got. Not a feeling I'm proud of but when I got up 8-10 times a night every night for 4mths solid...
Thankfully DD is sleeping a bit better but just starting another feeding frenzy so after a week of only feeding twice a night she's trying to push me back to a few more...I don't want to
4 more weeks and I can graduate to the 6mth sleep thread

Chulita, that made me laugh sooo much! I have never voiced that terrible thought to anyone except DH, who was so that I realised that I could never say it to anyone else (except MNers, to whom one can say almost anything!)

Of course, the minute that we get up in the morning, all those awful thoughts disappear and DS is the most amazing, beautiful thing that's ever happened to me.

yes, daylight makes an enormous difference, doesn't it. it was the same for me in those first few weeks in december. would feel absolutely dead at 5 am, but once the sun came up everything seemed so much more manageable.

feralgirl I too have sometimes wished I hadn't had another baby so you're not alone there. But you're right, when they give you a gummy smile or a chuckle, those thoughts are gone and I feel blessed again (until 3am the next night!! ).

Nobody I know in RL has such a poor sleeper either and their babies are all sleeping through or having just one feed.

DS has had another 2 nights of waking 1-2hrly and only settling with a feed.

I keep wondering what I'm doing wrong! He goes down about 7.30pm with no trouble and is awake when I put him down. Likewise, I make sure he's awake when put down for a nap and don't put him down immediately after a feed either.

I used a musical lights show thing to help with the transition from my bed to a cot and the HV thinks he now has a dependancy on that and needs me to switch it back on whenever he wakes! So I will have to try and wean him off that now.....more howling!!

chulita you have made my day with that comment!

One thing that made a big difference with DD's sleeping was starting to get her ready for bed at 5pm, in bed no later than 6 and making sure (as much as possible between trips to shops/HV/post office etc) that she's not up for longer than 2 hrs max during the day. I also took everything out of her cot no mobile (which she loved), no toys, nothing that could possible stimulate her when she woke up - only one sleepy bear that she drags over her face and sings to . I did find at one point I was getting up just to turn her little fish mobile on so that had to go. I even put a dark blanket over one side of the cot so she can't even see out into her room. It looks really boring but since doing that she's slept better [fingers crossed] We used to be up every 1.5-2hrs but since doing that I'm up a maximum of 3 times between 6pm and 6am. Last night she went to bed at 6, I fed her at 3 cos my boobs were going to pop and then she woke up at 7...hooray!!

Thanks chulita. I will removing the music thingy (although I'm sure he will complain initially!)

I'm also trying not to let him stay up longer then 2 hours and I do find he settles for naps quicker if I catch him just before the 2 hours are up. Only naps for 40 mins though....

Brilliant night for you though!!! Long may it continue!

LOL at baby club looks Chulita, thanks for the advice, I will also try removing mobile and putting a blanket over the bars as I often find her at the top of her cot peering through them after naps and early pm.

Feralgirl some of my relatives think I am a daft first time mum too, my sister me keeps asking if we've "got her to sleep through yet" which is not helpful! She did use CC with her DS at 6 months though and I don't want to go down that road at the moment, despite threatening considering it in the wee small hours. It is funny how much better everything does look and feel in the daylight hours!

The first night without a mobile to distract was hard work, she did cry a lot and I don't think DH and I slept much at all. I also stopped jumping up at the first whimper and let her decide whether she actually wanted to cry or whether she was just letting us know she was still there (as if we could forget!!)
It is crazy how much you forget during the day though!!

Maybe I'll start tomorrow with the daytime naps 1st [cop-out emoticon]!

daytime naps are the hardest for us - i put him down and he cries and cries unless we're out in the pushchair. As soon he sees me he's so happy and wide awake i find it really hard to persevere with the naps - though i do understand they may help with sleeping through. i have had some success with white noise helping him sleep in the daytime....does anyone have any more daytime tips?

Well he can be more difficult but I cope with that better in the daytime.

As was said earlier, I try not to have him awake for much longer then 2 hours from when he last woke.

I also keep the routine the same every time - nappy, sing a song (poor boy!) then into cot. He takes a while to settle though but I'm persevering. I also leave him for a bit if he's just grumbling but I must admit that if I haven't managed to settle him after 30 mins, I give up for a while. And I usually resort to a walk in the pushchair at least once a day .

Today after putting him down, he grumbled for about 5 mins then was cooing and gurgling before dropping off. For me, that's a real result because I feel that he's finally realising that his cot is quite a nice place to be!

Now all I need to work on is getting him to nap for longer then 30-40mins....

I think I just decide to worry about a new thing every day! was reading NCSS whilst giving ds his bedtime feed. very comforting. though the sleep log is very daunting...

Chulita, I'm going to try that with the cot I think, although I'm almost as attached to the mobile as DS is. Sometimes he'll wake up from a nap and I won't even realise because he's so absorbed in staring at it! I'm sure he'll appreciate it just as much if it's hanging above the changing table though.

I think I might try an earlier bedtime too, as it's nigh on impossible to get DS to stay awake for his final feed so I'm always inadvertantly feeding him to sleep. Thinking about it, he's waking earlier these days (6ish rather than 7ish) so it makes sense for him to go to bed earlier too.

DS was insisting on sleeping on his front which meant I was too scared to have him in my bed; I'd put him in his snugglenest on his front next to me but I found his wool wrap wasn't able to do it's job because his weight was on the wettest part and then he was wriggling and fussing from 4am onwards because he was getting a bit damp. I've managed to persuade him to sleep on his back again and so we've properly co-slept the last couple of nights which has made a HUGE differnce. He still woke every 2 hours last night but only needed feeding twice and settled dead quick each time so I feel great today!

I have been up since 3am yet am scarily lucid. Have been reading your thread. Must dig out NCSS from ds. I have theories. Shall return after bath and bed if I survive that long

I'm finding the talk of making the cot boring quite interesting. We don't have a mobile as dh broke it (was very as it was new) but dd does have some cot surround things she likes to look at.

Feral my parallel lives friend how have you gone about persuading him to sleep on his back?

Ok so my various theories after the horror that was last night made half hourly wakings seem like a mild discomfort.

1. we co-sleep but she doesn't snuggle, she has never wanted to. She sleeps in a co-sleeper side car thingy. So, does it disturb her being next to me? Bit of a non-starter really this road as we have nowhere else to put her really, I was going to keep her in with us until she slept through and then stick her in with ds.

2. She is a tummy sleeper, always has been, she has literally never slept on her back, she has always screamed at that. But, she gets pissed off being on her front when awake, is she getting annoyed during the light part of her sleep cycle and waking up and of course not getting back off because she is annoyed?

3. Dummy, it comes out, she wakes up, can't get back off. Mind you these days she screams even with it.

I've lost the plot for feeds, obviously I need to set a target as can't offer each time she wakes but I don't really know what is reasonable. I suppose 2.5 to 3 hourly?

Where do I start? Eating dinner in shifts tonight, dh up there trying to get her to settle on her back. Seems ridiculous when I don't even know why she keeps waking. Last night she woke 5 times before 3am then woke at 3 and would not go back to sleep at all, I really cannot survive on this!

Oh my Goodness Indith...that sounds horrific! Did you have a better night last night??

have just finished reading ncss - and have just 'made' ds go to sleep for the first time (without my nipple in his mouth!).

It is a wonderful book - normally i would put him down and leave it up to him if he goes off or not, if he got upset i would just assume that he didn't need a nap and couldn't bear to let him cry it out, but i have just done what she said and it worked, it worked!

still not sleeping through the night, but i feel so optimistic. this baby did not 'do' daytime naps. thank you mumsnet, thank you elizabeth pantley, thank you smurfette for suggesting it.

i have just burnt the bottom out of my favourite saucepan, but it doesn't matter cause this is such a good feeling!!

well i spoke too soon, he's awake again already! but happy.....

it's a start staines! Well done you and baby staines!

Well done Staines

We gave up on getting her on her back last night and decided to go for baby steps and start with dummy ditching so hopefully she won't feel the need to wake up every time she wriggles and loses it. Anyway I'm not sure if it was a fluke or not but....

She finally went off at 8.30ish then dh packed me off to bed in the spare room promising to do the first feed as I was a very tearful mess and doubting everything we were doing. She slept until 11.30 then had 5oz from a bottle but refused to go back down (I suppose the bottle doesn't have the comfort factor ) so was brought to me and nosed at the breast for 30 seconds before dropping off then slept until 4.30 had a good bf then slept until 7.15 No re-settles at all!

She hasn't napped much today but didn't yesterday either.Tonight we'll see if it was a fluke or not I suppose.

Wow Indith, that's fab I am vvv , you certainly deserved it after your last horrible night!

DS will only sleep on his back if I am next to him in bed. He won't even consider settling like it in his own bed. I think you're about right in thinking that 2.5-3hours between feeds is 'reasonable'; shame the babes don't have the same ideas about how to be reasonable though isn't it?!

Staines NCSS is reassuring isn't it? I re-read it when I get desperate to reassure myself that we're doing all the right things and that it will eventually all be OK.