restless sleeper?

Question

My son is 20 weeks (EBF) and I am currently co-sleeping. I feel like his whole life has been a sleep regression and I am looking for some advice on what to do to help him sleep. He used to be able to be put down and sleep in his bassinet for most of the night his first stretch 4 hours or so. Then every two after that. Since about 3.5 months he doesn't even give me 30 mins & he's awake and won't go back down unless he's asleep on top of me! He only eats maybe 2x a night now but he's awake 5-6x tossing turning fussing (not crying or upset) needing to be shh'd and rocked and then he's up for the day between 5-6:00AM

Basically I am a walking zombie and I don't get 4 hours of sleep a night. Does anyone have any suggestions or in the same boat ?

Answer

Sounds like my son. Around 3-4 months there's usually a sleep regression. They start having more adult-like sleep cycles and wake more easily during the light sleep portion. There's been a lot of studies on sleep training and how bad it is. I read Sweet Sleep and it gave a great, evidence-based perspective. Also, some baby's temperaments make them more alert (mine included) and it's harder for them to go back to sleep. We use a sidecar and it's working well. He's almost 5 months and is waking on average 2-3 times a night. He can be helped back to sleep with my hand on his tummy (or sometimes he holds my hand). I know it's so hard to be missing sleep. Some nights are harder than others. Good luck, mama!

Answer

I had the exact same situation. Fantastic night time sleeper with 4 hour stretch, sometimes 5/6 hour initial stretch them up every 2 hours for food. At 3.5 months he switched and it became every hour, and my LO would want breast, he wasn't content with me rocking or shushing him. But because he has reflux he would over eat and then feel uncomfortable and wake 20 minutes later, need to be picked up so he could vomit all over me and then put back down until he woke again an hour later to eat. I was getting 0 sleep. I was told by my mum sleep sorts itself out at 4 months, yet I kept reading online about the sleep regression and how it's not something they'll grow out if because it's their new adult sleep cycle. So I gave it a month of feeling so disgusting, being a total raging bitch, crying, having my relationship in tethers purely and simply because I was getting maximum 4 hours of sleep at night in batches of about 20 minutes at a time. Finally it got too much and I sleep trained. I bought ferbers book, read it back to front, talked to my SIL who also sleep trained but with a  slightly different method and then I went for it. He cried 50 minutes first night, slept 4 hours straight, before waking simply for a feed, no rocking no crying no moaning, he went back down, slept for another 2+ hours and then slept again. Next night it went to 30 minutes. Then 8. And tbh a month on, he's now learnt to self soothe from this consistent routine for 2 weeks and I now feed him to sleep as I did before sleep training and when he wakes naturally after 2 hours when his sleep gets light, he'll cry for about 3 minutes and go back to sleep. So he's learnt how to cope with the natural night wakings and yet I still feed 2/3 times a night due to personal preference.

Basically in a very long winded personal way I'm saying I don't think there's any option other than to sleep train, however there are no cry methods if you'd like to try them, I tried those methods early on nd it didn't work

Answer

Sleep train. My son would only sleep in bed with me until I trained him. Now he sleeps in his crib every night and usually sleeps through the night.

Answer

What happens if you don't pick him up?

restless sleeper?

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