Not another baby sleep plea

[GeorgeBeeThomson]

My partner and I are at breaking point with our 4 month old baby girl. She was suffering from silent reflux and in her earlier months I was recovering from a broken leg and have only recently been able to help more.

Our lovely little girl rarely sleeps for more than an hour and a half at a time and the past ten or so days have seen her up every hour. While she can be put back to sleep fairly quickly around the 5 am mark she awakes with terrible crying meaning I take her downstairs while my partner gets another hour. She has been breast fed and went through all the allergy tests resulting in no dairy as a precaution and she is happily eating her baby rice and pureed food.

My partner just needs sleep. She is the kind of person who breaks down when our dog wont stop barking at other dogs. We have spent a lot of money on various classes for our girl which she is too afraid to go to in case the baby gets unsettled.

I should also add it seems like overtiredness but the window we get to try and settle her down is tiny.

Apologies if my post seems scatterbrained. I'm currently pushing our daughter in the pram outside in the freezing cold while typing as the pram seems to be the only way to get her to sleep longer than an hour.

My hearts breaking for both my partner and baby.

[kt_11]

What a gorgeous little girl! Sorry to hear you’ve been struggling. She sounds similar to my little boy so will see if I can help.

Sleep often gets really disrupted around this time as baby’s sleep cycles mature. They wake between cycles and some can find it hard to get back to sleep (4 month sleep regression).

Others will have different opinions about this but I have genuinely found that he’s improved as he’s got older. I wasn’t keen to do anything but the gentlest types of ‘sleep training’ (I suspect your partner will feel similarly) but there are a couple of things that we’ve done which I think have helped him to improve on his own.

Have you ruled out wind, teething, hunger, temperature etc? How does she get to sleep?

I found the most important thing was to get baby to fall asleep in the same place he would wake up. I stopped feeding to sleep and instead fed him about 30-45 mins before bed. Like your daughter he still needed movement to help him sleep. I still rocked him til he was sleepy but then put him in the cot and patted him with white noise on. If he cried I would pick him up but otherwise I would keep patting til he went to sleep. I still do this now as he’s not the type of baby who just lies down and drifts off to sleep!

I think it was about 6 months old that he stopped needing to be pushed in the pram to nap. I was going out several times a day walking for miles and was exhausted but one day I put him in the pram, went to get my coat and he’d fallen asleep! Game changer! He still naps in the pram but in the house without it moving. As long as I put him down at an appropriate time, he moans a bit then usually will fall asleep. If I cries I rock the pram to settle him. If you’re struggling to know when to put her down, try a couple of hours after she last woke as a general guide and work from there.

Hope that helps. Keep looking after each other as it’s so hard being sleep deprived. My partner hasn’t really understood how much it’s affected me and our relationship has been quite strained. My baby is still not the greatest sleeper but is loads better. He did over 7hrs in one go on Saturday, putting himself back to sleep each time he woke which is incredible for him. Last night he kept waking up crying. But things are generally improving steadily...Good luck!

[Lovefood1984]

I feel for you! I’m dreading the 4 month sleep regression with my daughter who is almost 12 weeks and also suffering from silent reflux, she’s had 3x 20mins naps today and is now really tired and cranky 😞 she can’t seem to stay asleep during the day either unless I sling her and keep walking but my hips ache and I’m tired just like your partner. We had a glorious 2 weeks when it was controlled and she slept during the day but we’ve gone backwards again and it’s sooooo hard. I cried at my husband when he came home on Saturday as he’d been out 12hrs after I’d had a difficult week with her and was exhausted.

I’d say to your partner to get out even if she is cranky, if you are surrounded by other mothers with babies then one will be cranky at some point and talking to people going through the same thing actually helps, I got nothing but ‘I hope things get better’ when I went with a cranky baby to our weekly baby sensory class and told people we’d been back to the GP and she wasn’t sleeping. Try to also go out in public together, it’s a lot easier with two and get her to stick to baby classes for now until she’s more confident (nothing worse than a well meaning nosy Parker say something to upset you, luckily I have thicker skin but comments of ‘is She hungry’ and ‘I would have abandoned my shopping’ whilst she was crying in Asda one day doesn’t do much to help!)

I’ve decided to go with the flow for now in terms of rocking etc (she also cosleeps which I hate as I’m uncomfortable but no matter how deep a sleep she is in if I put her in her next to me crib she’s awake within minutes even if I’m near!) and I’ll unpick the ‘damage’ of not being able to self settle or sleep alone once we get the reflux properly under control. Sometimes she only takes 60mls of formula but during the night when sleepy she can take 150ml which would be more appropriate for her weight......I feel for her as she’s in a constant I’m hungry but uncomfortable conundrum (and we’re also on extensively hydrolysed formula on prescription too). I’m hoping we’ll get a paediatrician referral now the GP has had to put her onto omeprazole, I’m not sure it’s doing anything yet though.

I wish I could offer you more advice but she will grow out of this (although all you end up doing is wishing their young lives away as it’s soooo hard) and let your partner know you are not alone! xxxx