sleep regression?? please help!

[redbrick80]

My son will be 5 months on Aug 16. He has never been a good sleeper. He cannot fall asleep on his own, he cat naps for 40-45 mins at a time, cannot transition through sleep cycles and I have to feed or rock him to sleep. He was sleeping anywhere from 3-6 hr stretches at night up until a month ago. He now wakes every 1-2 hours, the last week he has been up 5-6 times every night. He feeds, usually a snack, and goes back to bed He is usually in bed asleep by 7 pm. He always wakes 45 mins after he's down, then we put him back and can get a 2 hour stretch. He is formula Fed

Clearly I can't go on like this. I know I should put him down drowsy, but awake...he cries and gets really upset. Patting him etc does not settle him. I am desperate for any sleep for him and myself so I've been doing whatever I can to get him to sleep


Is this 4 month sleep regression? Should I start to sleep train? How old should they be for sleep training? There are definitely some bad sleep associations he's developing.

Any advice is appreciated, anyone else experience this craziness??

 

[Unlucky41]

Oh rebrick no real advice but just want to say you are not alone. My son is almost 19 weeks and he cat naps during the day. Can't put him down until after 7pm in the evening. He is sleeping 3 hours stretches but before the regression he was doing 7 or 8 hours Stretches. During the night it takes ages to put him back down up to 1 hour 20 minutes grrr. He can't self settle either.

They say don't sleep train bub until 6 months. But I think all babies are to their own when they are ready. I didn't try any form of training on my daughter until 8 months. We cried on and off 3 hours the first night. I did the pick up put down method. It was horrible. Not sure if she Learnt anything as she just slept out of exhaustion. I think they do eventually learn that mummy is not coming anymore though .

She didn't really learn to self settle properly until after 1 years old. At 2.5 she started sleeping through bad eh

 

[Teri7489]

My post has gone somewhere on this thread?

 

[Teri7489]

Will try again!

I really hated the term sleep regression, made me worry more actually. I like to think of them more of stages as each generally happened when they learned something new. Has your little one learnt to roll yet? This age is about the time they try which interrupt their sleep (just like us adults thinking over stuff for say work and not managing to sleep till we crack it) Once they do it they generally go back to sleeping as they were.

Sleep training isn't advised till after 6 months, me I would say wait longer as you will have a few more stages of sleep changes (learning to crawl, walk) so will have to sleep train again.

plenty tummy time, encouraging him to roll and play but of course he won't do it in till he is ready. he will sleep. he really will. but for now just rest as much as you can. fresh air, good food and rest even when you can sleep. you'll survive, promise xxx

 

[redbrick80]

Thanks Ladies! We decided to move ahead with sleep training and happy to day he has only been up once a night to feed! He so much happier.

 

[Unlucky41]

Good to hear things are better Redbrick. What form of sleep training did you do and how long did it take to work?