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Original poster

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

685 replies

SnowlightMcKenzie · 06/02/2009 13:10

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

OP posts:
stainesmassif · 10/05/2009 09:35

here here fg, step away from the baby books! i have come to the conclusion that it's just the baby you've ended up with.....if they're a good sleeper then you are very lucky and should just keep quiet about it, and if they're not then you shall receive your reward when they turn into a well balanced highly intelligent teenagers.......see you in 12.5 years!

ncss is good in a couple of respects - not all babies sleep through even at 9 months. and co-sleeping isn't detrimental. hooray!

stainesmassif · 10/05/2009 09:39

"when they turn into a well balanced highly intelligent teenagers" - sleep deprivation prevents me from stringing a coherent sentence together too...

Chulita · 11/05/2009 08:37

Morning all! We're back from the seaside (why isn't there a droopy-eyed emoticon???) DD wasn't too bad but has decided (obviously after getting ideas from this thread) that 4am is a brilliant time to wake up and sing for an hour or so...ay ay ay. Not nice but lovely at the same time she sounds so precious and gorgeous but we'd rather she saved it for later!
And yes all you aunts/uncles/grandparents etc, DD is a fabulous baby. Ati, what a question: is she a good baby? Of course she is...she's just forgets that sleeping is a good idea, that's all

stainesmassif · 11/05/2009 09:03

hi chulita - yes, i often feel quite choked when i can hear ds having a chat with his feet!

feralgirl · 11/05/2009 15:50

Gah, not even going to go into details about the last two nights. Suffice to say I VERY nearly dozed off whilst driving this morning and swerved just in time to avoid ending up in a hedge.

Glad you've had a nice weekend Chulita

superdanovi · 11/05/2009 19:21

fg that's scary... Hope you're OK.
Things aren't great here either as we've also had two disastrous nights. God, is this ever going to end?

StarlightMcKenzie · 11/05/2009 23:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Chulita · 12/05/2009 11:06

We're back on the 1.5/2 hourly wake ups again. I did enjoy our brief foray into the world of 2 feeds a night [nostalgic sigh] I'm really hoping this is just her 6mth growth spurt a little early...

phee96 · 12/05/2009 11:55

DD's sleep has gone from bad to worse I have to keep reminding myself that it will pass (hopefully )

superdanovi · 12/05/2009 21:28

The fact that the equivalent thread for 6 month olds is even bigger than this one is slightly troubling though...

Chulita · 13/05/2009 09:13

I think we just have to celebrate every 4 hour stretch we get. I've got a friend with 3yr old twins and she's still up most nights I'm hoping that's unusual!!

feralgirl · 13/05/2009 16:33

My niece is nearly 4 and she still wakes up twice a night and is ready to get up at 5am most days My SiL's solution was to do a loft conversion for her bedroom and have a spiral staircase that my niece can't climb

At the time I thought it was a bit harsh but I'm now beginning to understand...

We've recovered a bit from Monday now; we've both had a cold so have spent two days doing very little and have actually had two reasonable nights. Last night I just did two feeds and no other wakings which was lovely.

Because of being ill, DS hardly fed at all on Monday so in desperation I gave him some baby rice before bed which he enjoyed so much that I did it again last night too. I dunno if that's had positive impact and explains our good sleeps.

So much for my high minded ideas about not weaning before 6 months. Needs must I suppose...

Chulita · 14/05/2009 20:36

baby chulita's feeding about every 2 hours since Monday, night and day [bleary] she won't settle tonight either so I've done the 2nd feed in 2 hours and she's slept for 20 mins and is fussing again. I'm wondering if it's teeth and a growth spurt mixed but her little cry is heartbreaking. Maybe Calpol...grr...

feralgirl · 14/05/2009 21:32

for baby Chulita. Hope she settles for you soon.

stainesmassif · 16/05/2009 10:53

so........all quiet on the sleep front??? we stayed at a hotel last night for our anniversary so sil had ds. he slept from 7 til 1 am, then through til 6!!! why when i'm not there???!!

JJ1471 · 16/05/2009 11:10

So glad to see that I'm not alone! My 17 week old has never slept through the night, but until a couple of weeks ago we were getting away with one night feed between 10.30pm and 7am. The last couple of weeks have been awful, he slept better when he was a few weeks old, now he barely manages 2 hour stretches at night, and will only nap during the day in his pram or car seat.

We're wondering if he is teething, there is a small white spot on his gum, and if he is really screaming at night then he will drop off to sleep easily after a dose of Calpol. We just don't want to get into the habit of giving him Calpol to make him sleep.

He also sleeps better when I have him in bed next to me, so I was wondering whether the frequent wakings are also due to breastfeeding and the fact that he is used to feeding frequently? Do people that are formula feeding have such sleeping problems? I've never really got on with breastfeeding and am probably ready to start phasing it out, but don't want to assume that moving to formula will make it all better!

It's all making me too depressed to meet up with my antenatal class buddies, all of whom have babies that manage long stretches at night!

stainesmassif · 17/05/2009 10:46

Hi JJ, not sure re switch to formula, as am still bfing. very similar sleep pattern to you too.

i have discovered a miraculous way to get my ds to take naps during the day in his cot - was very difficult before. I put him down after he's been up for about two hours, he doesn't have to appear particularly sleepy, though i always put him down when he grizzles, lie him on his back and pat him vigorously on his chest and stomach. enough to make his body move on the bed. in the rhythm of a heartbeat. it works every time within 2 minutes max. worked for my sil yesterday. even patting the bed in the same rhythm seems to work. obviously, may just apply to my ds.

unfortunately i still don't seem to have cracked night times though.

KiwiPanda · 17/05/2009 16:04

Hey guys, how's sleep-deprivation corner?

I have added to my woes by finally deciding to take DD out of the swaddle (at 21 weeks..) - so now she's waking every hour at most, I think because she's just not used to having the freedom to move her arms around! God I hope she gets over that soon... She's also discovered how to roll onto her front and does it every 5 minutes, including in the cot, leaving me with dilemma of "should I turn her over or not??"

Oh, and to add to that, she's had a cold and a cough, has not been feeding brilliantly and as a result has, I'm pretty sure, dropped well below her centile line - she was only on 9th so she's not got a long way to fall..

Sob

jumpjockey · 18/05/2009 08:09

Morning [yawn] after a single one-off sleep from 8 to 3.30 dd has got even worse. Wakes herself up at 11ish by flipping onto her front, won't settle back unless she's on the boob, then for the last three nights has spent the rest of the night rolling back and forth against me, usually still attached to the nipple [ouch ouch ouch]. If I try to PPO her off she gets cross, if she seems asleep and I try to put her in the cot she gets even crosser. As a result I have no idea how much sleep she's actually got (is she awake while flailing back and forwards?) and I've had even less.

she's managed a few decent naps during the day (2 hours yesterday in a oner!) and generally very active and wriggly the rest of the time, is there any way we can persuade her to calm down at night? Blackout blinds, grobag etc have stopped working. We're thinking of putting her in her own room really quite soon in case it's us disturbing her/my presence next to her giving her somehting to wake up for, but I really can't face the idea of having to go down the hallway every time she wakes up to try and settle her with my boob between the cot bars!

feralgirl · 18/05/2009 19:47

Hello all, we've had a reasonable weekend with a couple of nights with only one or two feeds but we're still dealing with the waking for an hour from 3.30-4.30 which has clearly become an ingrained habit so I'm wondering whether to try the wake to sleep thing. The idea of setting my alarm for 3am is just hideous though!

Hi JJ, re the FF vs BF, I've been asking around about this too (not coz I want to stop, more in desperation and general nosiness) and most people seem to say it doesn't make any difference. I was talking to someone today whose BF 3 month old sleeps 8 hour stretches which made me really irrationally and and a friend's FFed DD (now 2 yo) was just as bad as my DS is and worse than her BFed DS (2 mo).

Kiwi, sorry to hear DD's poorly, DS has been too which is just sooo miserable. I get well cross when he gets ill (this is his third cold) because I think that all that BFing has got to have been for something and if not for boosting his immunity then what?!

I've only got another 2 weeks here , then I'm off to the six month thread; Chulita, I've seen you there while I've been lurking, when do you graduate?

feralgirl · 18/05/2009 19:49

Happy anniversary Staines. Hope you had a nice night

stainesmassif · 18/05/2009 21:01

fg - thanks, but i was really stupid and got a bit drunk (doesn't take much) and we were staying in a really old, really creaky hotel. so woke up at 4.30 am with enormo boobs and a raging thirst, couldn't get back off til 7am!!!!!!! am still paying the price now.....have only got about 3 more weeks on here myself, hopefully we won't see each other on the six month thread?!

stainesmassif · 19/05/2009 10:53

oh woe, woe is me.....last night was mental. here is my schedule. can anyone make sense of it?

5.30 - 6.30 ds is bathed, creamed, changed, fed, in bed and happily going to sleep like a model baby

9pm ds wakes up for extra feed (?) - well feeding sent him back to sleep anyway

12pm, ds wakes for regular night time feed

3am ds wakes for 2 hour session of crying, feeding, winding, screaming, restlessness, and finally calpol induced sleep til 5 til 7.30

he doesn't eat 'breakfast' until now.

his cheeks are very ruddy today, so am assuming this may have something to do with teething, but the feeding's still all wrong isn't it.

i am getting it so wrong aren't i. ,,.

he's not ready for solids - everything goes all over his face/clothes/me when i try to feed him, but am i creating the problem here?

alternatively, please advise me that this is just a one off!

Chulita · 19/05/2009 14:24

Hi fg, one week tomorrow and I'm off to the six monther. Lost internet for couple of days and I've been so bored with this crap weather so not many walks and DD still waking up far too often. I got a cold and have now passed it on to her so she's sleeping even less. Argh...
staines you're not getting it wrong. DD's been waking every 2 hours for the last 10 days and doing the 2 hour scream fest for about 3 nights. She's been funny with her feeds too, apart from demanding it every 2 hours, yesterday and today she wants it every 2-3 hours but only wants one boob surely if she's hungry she'd want both?? Maybe tonight will be better for both of you...[fingers crossed] (hang on, got to get baby Chulita crying after 30 min nap [sigh]) I've been giving her bits and bobs of food for a while now cos she steals it off my plate given half a chance but she doesn't eat much. I think they do need a bit more milk at this stage but I don't see any harm in letting them have a chomp on some broccoli if they want to...not that I know anything about weaning Ok, so not answering your question at all Even when they start eating solids not much goes down so it's not an instant fix. Hopefully last night was a one off!!

feralgirl · 19/05/2009 21:04

Oh Staines that's miserable but, in fairness, not dissimilar to most of our nights! DS wakes regularly every three hours on a good night, every two hours on a bad one.

The only diff is that our early morning two hour sessions of being awake are him laughing and playing with whatever he can get his hands on rather than screaming. Sounds like teeth but I'm no expert!

Re solids, how old is he? DS is nearly 25 weeks and has been playing with proper food this week; like Chulita, I reckon it's OK for some fruit and veggies. We're doing BLW so it's (a) not as messy as spoon feeding mush, (b) much more fun and (c) things like chunks of cucumber are great for sore gums.