Please help! (Sorry it's so long!)
I'm not on here often, but I'm in desperate need of advice. My DD is 5 months old and has turned into a terrible sleeper! At 3 months she was sleeping through the night and napping ok during the day. At 4 months this all changed. I blamed it on the 4 month wakeful period, but I don't think that was it. Things have gotten worse now and she wakes up every 2 hours at night. She's not hungry but takes the bottle to sooth herself and will drink about an ounce or so before falling back to sleep, she's never been a fan of the pacifier.
I feel like I've done everything wrong and I'm not sure where to start first in order to fix things. Here are my failures:
1) I let her fall asleep on me completely before putting her down
2) she often falls asleep on the bottle
3) she is still sleeping in the RnP in our bedbedroom
I don't know which habit to start with or how to rectify any of these situations. Any advice/ words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated. I'm at a loss and feel like a complete failure 
thanks in advance!
Re: Please help! (Sorry it's so long!)
I would go to the library today and get the no cry sleep solution it will be a great guide to some strategies you can use to change your habits and get lo to be a great sleeper again
Good luck and be kind to yourself!!!!!!
I agree with Sigir...you are definitely not a failure.
I still nurse my dd to sleep, put her down while asleep, and she still sleeps in her pnp in our room. With that being said- dd has been a pretty good sleeper lately- KNOCK ON WOOD!
We went on vacation when she was around three months and it took a LONG time to get her back to her normal sleeping routine after that. I think the combo of the vacation, growth spurt, and wakeful period wreaked havoc on her. Maybe with the hurricane, your dd was thrown off her routine?
Have you started solids yet? She may be hungry...Just a thought.
The book Sigir suggested is great. I read it but really didn't follow it yet. ( I'm ready to if need be). The author really makes you feel like what you are doing is ok and to do what works best for you and LO.
Good luck:)
If the kid is alive, happy, well fed and well loved... then you are a resounding success as a mother.
I could have written your post about two weeks ago (except I'm on a year long mat leave, so the lack of sleep really doesn't bother me).
Suddenly, in the past two days she's sleeping in her crib. She's sleeping for much longer stretches without waking (or with only needing to be patted back to sleep rather than nursed every single time).
She'll be 6 months on Dec. 6.
Honestly, give it some time and let your lives return to normal after the hurricane, and I bet she settles in.
THIS!!
I feel the same way I feel like i'm doing something wrong. But husband keeps telling me i'm not its just our baby is the way she is, nothing wrong with her. And I believe him for a bit but then the no sleep turns on and i'm wiped. I was also displaced for 2 weeks, nothing like the month you had and that was hard. I hope everything is better for you on that end! If not let me know if I can help!
I have the sleep easy solution book, i read part of it and would read more if I had time. I'm taking a couple weeks off when my little one is 6 months and i'm possibly going to try it then.
Good luck! and much **hugs**