4 month sleep regression

Re: 4 month sleep regression

• laurapaine2003@yahoo.com member

  January 2016

  It's the 5th Dimension of Hell. Mentally and physically prepare yourself. But then again... I've met women who say it was barely a blip on the radar for them...
  
  One thing that has helped me is to research it; you'll find it's not really a "regression" - it's baby hitting another developmental milestone where their brains change, so it IS a good thing.
  
  Also, I look at it as this: a great opportunity to start teaching LO how to sleep good for the rest of their childhood. It's tough, it's hard, but what you do during this time can help for months and years to come regarding their sleeping habits.
  
  Be ready for not only their night time sleep to be off - I didn't realize their naps are greatly affected too. My advice is to keep trying different things till u find what works for you. For us, a simple change of putting her down in her crib for naps (instead of the swing downstairs where I'm at, with lots of light and tv noise on) made a world of difference - now she naps in her dark nursery with white noise in her sleep suit JUST like she does at bedtime. It drastically improved how she goes down for naps.
  
  Good luck - let's all get through this together!!

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• jen83mn member

  January 2016

  My LO (17 weeks) went from sleeping 8-10 hours straight at night from weeks 7-11 (and only waking up once to eat from weeks 4-7) to waking up at least 1-5 times per night at 11 weeks. It's gotten worse the past few weeks (weeks 15-17). Some nights are better than others.
  
  He's basically waking up after every one of his sleep cycles (every hour) and isn't able to put himself back to sleep consistently, so he starts whining, crying, and kicking. We usually try to wait it out just a few minutes to see if he'll settle down on his own, but lately he hasn't been and we've had to pick him up and rock him back to sleep.
  
  Last night was the first night in weeks he's slept through the night, but he had his 4-month shots yesterday so he was sleepier than usual. He still woke up after every sleep cycle but managed to put himself back to sleep.
  
  It's been rough, especially after getting used to sleeping through the night. My husband and I have been splitting shifts, so we wake up every other time so we both can get some sleep at least. I only nurse him back to sleep once max at night if nothing else will get him back to sleep, because I know he's not hungry and don't want to start that habit. On especially tough nights, we sometimes put him in his swing for the last few hours before we need to get up for work and sleep on the couch next to him.
  
  My pediatrician told us he should be sleeping through the night at this age ... ha! She also recommended a book that based on the reviews involves a harsh cry-it-out method in which you let the baby cry for hours and hours until he/she falls asleep, not going in to comfort him/her at all. I am definitely not comfortable with that. In my opinion, at four months he is much too little for that, and I wouldn't be able to use that method at any age! I just bought the book "The No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley and plan to implement a few of her techniques once I read the book. My pediatrician is 8-months pregnant now; I wouldn't be surprised if her opinion of that book changes once her baby is actually born! Listening to my baby cry is heartbreaking, and I know I personally could never just leave him alone to cry for hours and hours when he has no idea why his mommy isn't coming to make sure he's ok and comfort him.
  
  It's tough, but we'll get through it!

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