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

Minkersmum that is awful. it must be even worse when you have more than one. sympathies. i really hope it gets better for you soon.

(i'm run down too- mouth ulcers, spots, green eye-bags looking good!)

we had a really good one, again - dd went down at 7pm and didn't wake until 3am! (10 min feed), then up at 6.30

2nd night in a row - and it is getting better. (can i stay in club tho, please - i am not holding my breath)

first tooth has finally pushed through surface - i think that has been our trouble all along (although a am going to stick to earlier bed time, more fresh air, A&P and extra blanket too - just in case!!

CSWS good luck at doctor

Minkersmum so sorry to hear about your night - hope the gods of sleep swing round and send you something decent tonight

Lollipopmother what else does your DD wear with her fleece suit? I was given a couple but never sure what to do with them and terrified of overheating her.

Well, I'm back in the club - bed at 11.30 then up at 1.30, 4 (wouldn't settle until nearly 5), 7 (into our bed) and finally 9. There may have been another one between 1.30 and 4 but it's a bit hazy ... Penelope Leach book has just arrived and the only bit I've read so far says that it's having your sleep pattern interrupted rather than the lack of sleep that's so hard - so so true!

Anyway, better feed her before my right breast explodes. Head hurts. Bah.

Minkersmum - poor you. It always happens, doesn't it? Just when they sleep and you breath a sigh of relief, some external noise ruins it. Our next door neighbour is elderly and constantly summons her daughter with this weird horn! The number of times I've just crept out of DS's room having finally got him down for a nap and...PAAAARRRP! Hope you have a better night tonight.

A much better one for us, despite DS now having a bad chest. Woke himself up coughing at 11 and 12.45 but quickly shushed back to sleep both times. Monster feed at 3.45 and then I woke up at 7.30 going "Oh my God, he's not awake, is he okay?!" Cat then starting howling for breakfast and DS awake at 7.50. Feel human again. Will it continue?...

Sending sleepy wishes to everyone.

Anlepoise - it took me a week to read it! (grabbing opps whenever i could)

She talks a lot of sense, does ole PL - nice to read some of her techniques (they are probably stuff you are already doing) - she tells you how to gradually decrease your involvement in helping bubs to settle.
so far i've used earlier bed time and keywords - one day i will be able to say "SHH.. SHH.. SLEEEPY TIME" through the baby monitor and dd will magically drop off.......oh yes.

Back from doctor. No ear infection, so guess it must be teeth .

CSWS weirdly my DS was sleep-wailing on and off all night last night too...I didn't realise that was what it was at first.

was actually ok night: in bed asleep by 7.15, not a sound till 10 when he started wailing - went up and offered food, he got really angry! so carried him round and he went straight back off again, sleepily wailing as he did so more sleep-crying at midnight, easily shh'd; fed at 2.30am; more shh'ing at around 4.30; small feed at 5.15ish, when he came in with me as he was freezing. then awake at 7am. he has been delightful all morning despite being full of cold

As much as anything I'm glad he spent almost all of last night in his cot - was beginning to worry he was too attached to sleeping with us!

minkersmum how gutting for you I really hope you get to have a sleep sometime today. It's the worst when they get disturbed by other people. My MIL rang the house phone last night just as I was on the final verse of the final song before bed Luckily DS was too sleepy to be bothered, but I was Not Happy.

Angelpoise - I put her in a normal vest suit and the fleece long sleeved suit and a 2.5tog sleeping bag. We don't have the heating on at night though. I don't do up her sleeping bag until it's 20 degrees or less, and in the morning it's normally 15 or 16 degrees.

thank you for kind words everyone, it helps having mumsnet just to vent during the night.

arthymum lol at the horn story! Can't be fuuny for you but made me smile on a not very smiley afternoon.

Really struggling today, now that we have reached the 3pm mark i'm wilting big style.

Just got dd1 down for a nap and dd2 just up having slept soundly fron 12 noon. feel like going to bed too but if i slept now and had to get back up i think id vomit, already feeling that sleepy nauseous way (nothing to do with the big fat pig out 'keep me awake' lunch i ate of course)

please let tonight be a better night, i'm dreading it already.

Hope everyone gets a decent night tonight, please let there be sleepy gas released into the atmosphere...

dd2 now snoring at the breast... so tempted to lie down with her, i feel like a herion addict must feel only my fix is sleep... i just want some so bad it's awful.

leonie I would also PAY for 3 hours straight sleep, what a dream...

sorry to hear of these awful nights, esp minkersmum

hoping for super strength sleepy dust for all babies tonight..

my ds wakes frequently from wind - we now think this could be due to his bed. He's in an amby natures nest hammock and so cannot move - we think the restrictive nature of the hammock means he cannot move the wind along by turning his body so it ends up waking him up. I co slept last night and when he woke with wind, it was quick to comfort him by turning him on his side, wind was expelled and we both went back to sleep.

Is it silly that I'm pleased we're not alone? People keep telling me what I'm doing 'wrong' with DD. Unfortunately as DS is such a crap sleeper I haven't really got a leg to stand on.

Minkersmum that sounds crap. It's very different just dozlily feeding and actually being awake enough to mumsnet. I always find 3-5 pm the nardest time too. I almost fell asleep reading DS a story this afternoon!

DD is down for the evening. Hooray. This is the second day in a row she's settled early. It's funny, I know that this isn't the part that really matters but just having an hour on my own is really important. She's still up every 1.5 -2 hours in the night but hey-ho!

On my trying to find out WHY they do this to us, I think I once read somewhere that REM sleep develops about this age. Does anyone else know about this?

I'm actually feeling very lucky today having spent the morning with my friend who has amiscarriage last August. It turned out to be a molar pregnancy and now she's in the middle of chemo .

Anyway, may go and have a glorious bath. Have told DH he has to get up with DS in the morning because he does naff all at night and he agreed!

Magic sleepy dust over all your little cherubs

sambo - the Amby is supposed to be good for windy babies though isn't it - that's their selling point! I bought one in desperation when ds was a few weeks old and still insisting on being held all night, but he won't sleep in it, because he can't lie on his tummy in there, and that is the only way that he will sleep. What a lot of money to have wasted!

Well we've gone for the nurofen option tonight, in the hope that it might ease any teething pain that is contributing to ds' wakings. His first ever dose, so let's hope it works! He's still not managed a long nap today, but has had 5 napettes, of up to 45 mins each (prob about 2.5 hrs in total throughout the day). He went to bed at 8, and hasn't been heard from since. I shall be off to bed myself in a moment.

OMG DS2 is asleep . he had his bath and feed at 6.30pm and slept until 10pm, has just fed for another 15mins and is out cold again! am not tempting fate by thinking this phase is passed but last night he was the same. DH gave him 4oz formula at 12.30am and he only fed twice between then and 7am. a definite improvement.

skimty - i know what you mean about being told what you are doing "wrong". my charming mother has been on the phone asking when i'm moving DS2 into his own room and stopping this ridiculous breastfeeding. a growing child needs formula and that's why he's not sleeping just reminded her that DS1 was FF and he didnt sleep either

also think DS2 may have been hungry as he has been feeding every 2hrs day and night for the last month. gave his a stick of cooked carrot tonight & he couldnt cram it into his little face quick enought. think thats the BLW started then! he is 24wks old so we've done well

Morning all, hope the sleepy dust worked for you.

Well, my DS was a writhing, sobbing ball of non-napping snot yesterday afternoon so I put him to bed at 7pm fearing the worst...and didn't hear from him until 5am! This is the longest he has slept by far since the night he was born. I spent most of the night creeping up on him to make sure he was still alive and worrying that my breasts were going to explode and flood the house. Feed, back to bed and up at 6.30. Is it a one-off? Who knows. But if it is, I hope it's catching for you all. x

Whoops! Rather - if it isn't a one-off I hope it's catching!

Boo! Just when I thought we were getting somewhere - lo woke 6 times last night!!! Could it have been the full moon? (Am very jealous arthymum). Or maybe it was the rubbish-ness of our day yesterday, when he didn't really feed properly at all. Fingers crossed we'll get back on track today. But oddly - like hopefully said I think - I feel more refreshed this morning than I do when he just wakes up twice. Weird hey?

Arythmum

I'm just desperate for some sleep. DD managed a really good sleep in the day yesterday, I had to wake her after 2 1/2 hours as she had been awake for 2 hours before and hadn't fed for nearly 5 hours Why can't she do that at night?

At 7pm last night I was shattered and knowing that DP wouldn't be home till midnight I thought I would try and put her down to sleep, which she did. She slept until 7am but did wake up around 6 times but at least she went at the right time Hopefully I will be able to build on that and give her some sort of routine.

I thought I was doing great last night, DD in bed at 7, DS at 7.30. I fell asleep feeding DD at 9pm and woke at midnight but couldn't sleep again until about 3am. By half past 3 DS was in our bed jumping on me He just wouldn't go back to sleep and decided that I wouldn't sleep either DD probably would've slept longer this morning but DS decided we all had to get up.

I'm shattered.

fled my DS is definitely hungry, in both senses - he is feeding like a maniac at the moment (my boobs have started to get engorged and leaky again after a couple of months of normality) and has also been grabbing food out of our hands and eating it. He's 24 weeks also so I'm okay with starting him off on a little fruit. No banana is safe in this house anymore!

Further to Skimty's question about why this is happening: does anyone else's LO seem very anxious and clingy at night at the moment? DS has never had a problem sleeping in the room alone in the evening, which has always meant DP and I get a few precious hours to ourselves, but the last few nights he's been waking every hour and doing this bizarre wail - when you go to him and pick him up he falls back asleep almost instantly but it's a light sleep. The minute you try and leave or put him down in his cot, he starts again. He just doesn't seem to want to be left alone, and he was doing it on and off all night last night despite being in our bed I changed him at about 3.30am and he had a very anxious look about him, although was quickly soothed with some milk.

DP reckons it's because his consciousness is going up a gear and he suddenly recognises that he is 'alone'...he's certainly developing in massive leaps and bounds at the moment. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed anything similar

Can I join please, ds is only 15 weeks so not far off 4months.

We are co-sleeping at the moment but the last couple of nights he has maybe slept an hour n half in his cot. He has just,in the last couple of night started taking a dummy but I have been having to get up and put it back in his mouth when it drops out.

Dp is on earlys this week so cant really do this all night with him.

I

Need

Sleep

Morning all

daisyblue I'm not surprised it took a week - it's a brick of a book!

Thanks lollipopmother - we quite often put a cardie on her as well if it's cold but worry about overheating.

Not too bad a night here. In bed just before 11.30 (a huge positive of the last few weeks is that it now takes about 15 minutes to feed her to sleep and put her down, rather than the hour and a half it used to take!). She did wake up at one point but seemed to settle down again (or I was too asleep to respond ). At 3 am I woke up needing the loo and was about to crawl into bed wondering how long I would get before she woke up when I remembered what PL said about sleep cycles and getting them to fit around you so decided to give her a feed while I was up - also felt rather good to be waking her for a change Then she was back down until 6 or so (but hard to settle - grr) and came into our bed around 7ish, though coming into our bed has lost its magic and she's quite happy to lie there chatting or batting me in the face until I get up, rather than going back to sleep for a bit!

morining ladies

nice work Anglepoise - sneaky feeds are bound to help.
lol at the in your bed thing - it used to work for me too - but now she just pulls my nose/hair and babbles(loudly) to me too (it IS too endearing for words tho)

another good night here too (sorry - not gloating - i just want to give some hope? - dd is 23 weeks)
se went down at 6.30 (prob too early, really - but she was cream crackered) then up at about 9 (briefly -shh pat), then that was her till 3.30!! (feed) then up at 6.30 ...

re the wing thing - i read somewhere that an enzyme used to help break the gums down when teething can cause excess windy-pops (dd was certainly parping a lot in these first few weeks of hell)

I give her Ashton & Parsons and a bit of gripe water before night feeds now (poured the gripewater into an empty "infacol" dropper for ease of use)

CYTEEN - developmental leaps definitely affect their' sleep (and appitite) , so your dp could be on to something there too ...
oh - morning nap over
wishing you all lovely sleepy luck
this too shall pass

CYTEEN - my boobs are like that too. am suddenly leaking loads which i havent done since the early days. DS2 likes to hold the other boob when feeding as well - like he's afraid it will vanish before he's finished

anyway we had a really rough night. DS2 slept really well after his bath but was wide awake from 1am til about 5am. we all overslept this morning waking at 8am when DH starts work at 8.30.

lol fled funnily enough my DS has started doing the same.

Leonie i was reading someone else's thread about controlled crying today, apparently it is not recommended for babies this young. personally i would tell your HV to get bent - easy for her to dish out the advice but she doesn't have to actually do it, does she?

there is hope, i know there is - this will pass. maybe you could ask advice from some of the multiple mums on here as they will have dealt with such frequent night wakings, albeit split between two babies instead of one.

chin up girl