Is this the 4 month wakeful? If so help me!

KentuckyKate

LO will be 5 months a week from today. For about a week now, she has been waking up every.single.time. we put her down. If we don't pick her back up she cries. This is a new thing, just in the past week. Since she was born we could lay her down just fine. She almost never woke up, and if she did she could go back to sleep without crying. Now she is sleeping great, but only in my arms. I hold her or nap with her during the day, and we are bed sharing at night. I haven't given up- Every time she falls asleep I try to put her down, it just never works out. I don't know if this is the sleep regression or not, because if she's nestled in the crook of my arm she sleeps all night and takes 2-3 hour naps.

We haven't swaddled in a month. We slowly weaned, two weeks with one arm out, two weeks with both arms out, and now she's in a sleep sack. I would hate to go backwards, but I'm wondering if swaddling is what she needs. The first thing she does when I put her down is start rubbing her eyes or grabbing her paci. I tried holding her arms to her side last night and she seemed relaxed, but I can't stay hunched over the PNP forever, and as soon I moved my hands she starting flapping away and rubbing her face.

So what do you guys think I should do? Swaddle, sleep train, or resign myself to bed sharing for now?

HeartLikeMine3

We're in a similar situation. LO is not swaddle weaned at night but has never been swaddled for naps. He's always waking himself up with his hands grabbing at his face its not the startle reflex. I really don't want to swaddle for naps as we are about to swaddle wean and night and that seems like going backward to me. I don't know what to do either?!!! But at least you know your not alone. Is she teething? My LO is teething bad and I'm wondering if there's a correlation.

momofcatan

Could you try tucking her arms into the sleep sack? Not quite as tight as a swaddle, but maybe it will keep them away from her face, and hope she'll out grow it?

KentuckyKate

I don't think she's teething yet. She's not particularly fussy, drooly, or snotty during the day, and I haven't felt any teeth cropping up. Whatever this is is tiring enough- I pray to the patron saint of baby sleep, please don't add teething to the mix yet!

Monkeybutt80

Mine has always been just halo sacked with no arms.  He was sleeping fine through the night from early on, and then BAM!  starting on last Thursday he started waking up every 3 hours or so.  He talks the entire time and whines until I finally get up (because I cant sleep with him loudly talking the whole time) to nurse him because that always makes him fall asleep.  I never had problems with putting him down in his crib after he falls asleep nursing, but now he wakes back up most of the time as I am putting him back in his crib.  Then back to loudly talking and whining again.  At this point, I am so sleep deprived, i am not even sure what the point of this reply was...   oh yeah, I have no answers.  good luck.  hope yours grow out of it soon.  

Monkeybutt80

tubamom2 said:

Monkeybutt80 said:

Mine has always been just halo sacked with no arms.  He was sleeping fine through the night from early on, and then BAM!  starting on last Thursday he started waking up every 3 hours or so.  He talks the entire time and whines until I finally get up (because I cant sleep with him loudly talking the whole time) to nurse him because that always makes him fall asleep.  I never had problems with putting him down in his crib after he falls asleep nursing, but now he wakes back up most of the time as I am putting him back in his crib.  Then back to loudly talking and whining again.  At this point, I am so sleep deprived, i am not even sure what the point of this reply was...   oh yeah, I have no answers.  good luck.  hope yours grow out of it soon.  

Our LO is doing this 3 hour thing also but requires a paci to go back to sleep. Doesn't seem to be fully awake when doing it. I too am hoping it is developmental and will pass with time. We are trying to transition from swaddle to zipadeezip and she is teething, so its all kinds of fun.

mine was always a paci sleeper and now paci isnt cutting it.  He is WIDE awake.  Like, sees me enter the room and giggles kind of wide awake.  Last night, we tried just leaving him to fall back asleep on his own because he never actually cried, and he talked to himself  and kicked around for an hour and half.  At which point, I fell back asleep.  I woke up about 45 mins later, and he was talking.  I wasnt sure if he had gone to sleep and woke back up or if he was up talking the entire time.  

I have heard something about sleep cycles being like 90 minutes so 3 hours would mean that he's waking up every other sleep cycles...  Good luck...  

mshukh

We had the same thing happen a few weeks back. Tried swaddling again, and it didn't make a difference. I refused to nurse him every hour, since that seems crazy to me and only reinforces the waking. Tried plugging the paci in and it worked temporarily, until he started waking up every sleep cycle or so if it fell out. So going in every hour to plug it back in also seemed counterproductive. I know this won't be the popular opinion, but we started sleep training. Now I only go in and nurse when he wakes around 1 am and around 4-5 am. He really doesn't wake up at other times any more and it only took 2 nights. Yesterday he woke up at 9:30pm though and before we even had time to go in to check on him, he fell back asleep until 1 am. As long as he's not full on crying, we try to let him calm himself to sleep, otherwise, we are doing a modified Ferber approach and check on him to calm every few minutes. 

For us the decision was now is as good a time as any, since everything else stopped working. We don't want to co-sleep, as even in a separate crib next to us that seems like going backwards. And I was scared that if we don't do it now, we will soon add teething and rolling over to the list of things to deal with. 

If nothing else, you're not alone going through it. Hope this helps a little. 

KEK1025

This has been DD the past couple of nights.  The second we pick her up she passes out cold but try to put her back down and she starts fussing immediately.  I always associated 4 month wakeful with a "wakeful" baby.  DS wanted to have full on parties in the middle of the night, so I wasn't hesitant to think that maybe this is what it is.  Sorry no real advice just you're not alone and I'll be following to see what these other mommas who have been through it already think!

ETA - With DS we tried to sleep train - major fail as he just wasn't ready - so we just dealt with no sleep until he started growing out of it and then did sleep training when he was older and it worked wonderfully.  DD is already younger than he was when this wakeful period started so I am looking for other options as I don't believe sleep training is healthy or would work with her right now.

KentuckyKate

To be clear, she's not waking up all night. She just refuses to sleep anywhere but on me.

chelsmcl

I'm at this point too. It usually takes a couple tries to get her to stay down. Some nights I just give up and let her bed share the whole night and nurse as much as she wants.

Cricket81

We've been going through exactly this! The only thing that consistently works for me is letting him sleep in his bouncy seat. I always put him in the pnp first. I will try comforting him at least 3 times, but if he still won't settle, I put him in the bouncy chair. I would say that he usually does 1-2 sleep chunks in the bouncy seat and the rest I manage to get him in the pnp.

llbta85

Similar situation, I used to be able to nurse her to sleep and now, almost, without fail, she wakes when I put her down after nursing.  If I've addressed all her needs (diaper, nursing, temperature, etc) and she's still not asleep I've taken to turning on the crib soother, that has had mixed sucess.  I will say DD is still swaddled, but usually has one arm out when I go to check on her. Most of the times I tuck it back in to the Halo swaddle sack and that seems to help.  Good luck!