Baby will no longer self settle to sleep

[sil]

3Hi ladies,
My baby has been brilliant and from 2 months on I was able to put him in his crib, turn on the mobile, give him a kiss, and he went to bed. Last week all this changed.

Any time I put him in his crib he screams bloody murder. He takes literally 1-2 hours to comfort and get to sleep now every night this week.

He used to wake up once for a feed, and now he's waking up 3-5 times per night, eating, and when I put him back down after his feed he starts screaming again and the comforting starts over. By the time I get him back down I'm just exhausted and only get to sleep an hour or so before it starts all over again.

I'm not really sure what to do. Nothing changed. We have the same routine (breastfeed, book, song, zip him up in his woombie, and turn on the mobile in his bed). He just hates it now.

What is going on? What can I do? Naps are the same story. It just took me over an hour to get him to settle for a nap and I was ultimately only able to do it by feeding him to sleep and rocking him for 20 min and putting him down sound asleep. I never used to have to do this and I'm worried about creating bad sleep habits.

Is this the 4 month sleep regression? How do I teach him to fall asleep on his own again? Does this pass?

(He will be 4 months old next week, so it all started at about 3.5 months)

 

[Button#]

Sounds like the 4 month sleep regression and yes it will pass, but it's likely it will happen again at various points. Go with whatever makes life easier for you. Don't worry too much about self settling, it doesn't really mean much as they all go through good and bad patches. Mine also used to self settle and I'm also up and down all night.

The good news is one day your baby will start self settling and sleeping through, might not be soon but it will happen. My DS was an awful sleeper and you wouldn't know it now, we hit very regression hard and he had a terrible time with teething.

 

[SarahBear]

Sounds like the 4 month sleep regression. His sleep may be forever altered no matter what you do, or it could be a phase and pass no matter what you do... I wouldn't worry so much about creating a "bad habit" as just focusing on meeting his needs. In terms of self-settling, I can't help you there as self-settling was never a goal of mine for my babies.

 

[MindUtopia]

Though any particularly difficult times, I always think you should do whatever it is you need to do to get him to sleep and get some sleep yourself. Don't worry about all that bad habits rubbish. I think maybe you just got really lucky and have had a pretty easy time of it until now, and this is maybe a bit more typical of a small baby, so just adjust what you're doing until you find something else that works. We were co-sleeping, so slightly different, but at that age, we would do our usual routine of bath, milk, story, and then I'd lie down next to her on the bed while she was in her co-sleeping cot until she went to sleep, which took about 10-20 minutes, and then I quietly snuck away. That worked well, but there were definitely trying times around 5 months when she was learning to roll back to front when it took much longer. Their brains just don't shut off as well when they are growing and developing lots, so you just have to hang in there and try a few new things while that's happening and see if it settles down. My daughter didn't self settle though until she was more like 10-11 months, which I think is pretty normal, if not early for some babies/toddlers who take longer. It was never something I tried to make happen. Just happened on its own when she was getting a bit older.

 

[sil]

Thanks for the advice ladies

We actually have tried to cosleep before, but he's one of those babies who gets so excited and stimulated by us being there that he would never sleep and only wanted to play. He sleeps much more soundly in his crib. I was so exhausted last night I brought him in at his 4 am wakeup to see if he'd sleep in bed with us and it was a nightmare. He was playing and then crying and decided to be up for the day instead of drifting off to sleep as I hoped.

He actually did just learn to roll from back to front 2 days ago, so maybe this is playing in to things too.

 

[Linnypops]

Sounds about right. The thing is since you have a natural sleeper it probably won't last forever. I think I differ from other people in that I think if self settling is something you want long term you can keep trying it and seeing how it goes, if he's really against it then you'd try whatever the next option is. Would he fall asleep in a swing for example and then you could transfer him? Does he take a dummy to sleep? Would that maybe help? It's trial and error really.