suddenly bad sleep- please help!

[Deir]

Ok- this is my 3rd baby- I've been through the waking every 2 hrs for months and months twice. The reason we waited 4 yrs to try again was the lack of sleep. I feel like sleep deprivation made me slightly crazy and I definitely could have parented alot better if I had been rested.

So, Nora is almost 4 months and such a joy. She has been sleeping from 7;30-3:00 or 4 with 1 feeding around 10 then going back to sleep after the am feeding until around 7. it was bliss! Now for the past 5 nights- she has been unsettled the first part of the evening needing to be put back to sleep then waking sometime around 1:00 and then fussing, nursing, moving for the rest of the night. Today she did that and then woke at 5:30 for the day.

I know this sleep doesn't sound the worst because I've been through the worst with my other boys but I really thought Nora was different and we were going to be happy and well rested. I know I will probably just grin and bear it but I am seriously afraid of feeling so crappy again for so long.

I am sure she is teething and going through 4 month sleep issues but I want to help the situation if I can. Why do mainstream moms' babies seem to go through this stuff and not end up waking 5x a night until they are 3? YKWIM?

My sister suggested I put her in the crib in the other room thinking that maybe we are waking eachother up. Has anyone tried this with success? I can't believe I am even asking this because I have been through this before and nothing helped. I guess this time I just had hope that I got lucky? I don't want to be so stubborn about cosleeping that I end up messing with our sleep worse because I really feel like I have no patience or creativity with my other kids when I am ridiculously tired.

Has anyone had experienc with a "good sleeper" going through this but coming out of it in a short time and going back to their routine?

We are also dealing with a stressful elimination diet due to blood and mucus in her poop and I feel like at least i could say"she's happy and she sleeps" It is harder to deal with the worry of that issue when I am so tired and our routine is messed up.

[ellairiesmom]

i saw your post earlier & was replying but then got booted cuz it was gone???

I wish I had the answers...similar situation here...this is only our 2nd. She is in bed with us and after the initial 6 weeks of crazy gas, she started sleeping really well. of course I would get worried about my breasts being too full (i have oversupply & letdown) & would wake up to pump because she was still sleeping. DD1 never slept that long-she didn't give us more than 2-3 hours until she was 2 yrs old & moved into her own bed.

The past few weeks, things have gone downhill with dd2 from 12am till 8am ish...but we have had this crazy new success with naps in the crib. The crib that never ended up getting used by dd1! Not once. It sits in our room doing nothing. But about 2 weeks or so ago, I put dd2 in it while I was folding clothes on our bed & turned on the fish mobile thingy on it & she actually put herself to sleep & then took a 3 hr nap. I almost wet myself!

So basically-what we are experiencing now is she will take great naps during the day (even better the past week or so because she can roll herself onto her belly) AND she will sleep like clockwork from 9pm till midnight in the crib...but then she is up constantly, wont do a long stretch again in the crib & wants my nipple in her mouth all the time so I end up bringing her back in with us by 2 am or so & then she tosses & turns, grunts like she is annoyed & wants to nurse.

On Wednesday, she did bust her 1st tooth through the gums. And she had been drooling & gnawing on everything & anything for the past 2 months.

So I can't decide if it's nighttime teething stuff or some kind of internal struggle she is having over wanting her own space but also wanting my nipple & mama warmth??? Can a 5.5 mos old have internal struggles?

I love ebf'ing, and i wouldn't have it any other way...but I feel like I am seeing a similar pattern developing in dd2 with my nipple being the human pacifier. I wish I could "peacefully drift off to sleep" while nursing at night but that's always been hard for me. i am jealous of those who can do it.

i love cosleeping & it is hard for me to have her in the crib the 1st few hrs of her bed time. we stay up because that's our time without the kids but i constantly check on her. and now that she isnt sleeping well, i feel like i might need to sleep then & sacrifice our hang out time or else im going to lose it. i also have issues losing weight when i am sleep deprived & really need to lose 30 lbs at least.

[Deir]

Thanks so much for responding! I'm sorry you are having a rough time too. Maybe it is temporary for both of us? Ugh. I totally understand about wanting that time with dh at night. That is part of what bothers me- last night I went to bed at 8:30.

[ellairiesmom]

I know! I don't want to go to bed at 9pm but I need to find a way to get those few hours of sleep in a row...it's starting to wreak havoc on me. I tend to bottle it up & become emotional over little things as well as let myself go a little...well, that's what happened last time anyway. And I kind of feel it a little now too...I am not depressed or anything...I just lose my patience with people in my life but don't speak up about it & end up so angry at everyone for silly things.

I was just starting to get back to normal & was even dropping a few pounds & working out when we found out we were expecting dd2 last June. Don't get me wrong-I was THRILLED to be expecting again & did want them close in age. But damn-I was just starting to sleep. Then the pregnancy insomnia started again...lol.

I kind of wish I had tried a pacifier with dd2. I was always of the belief that I would end up just having to wake up throughout the night to put the pacifier back in my babe's mouth...so I never really tried one.

Does it maybe all come down to sucking...and needing to suck?

[Alisse]

Originally Posted by Deir

Has anyone had experienc with a "good sleeper" going through this but coming out of it in a short time and going back to their routine?

My son was a frequent waker but oddly enough my husband and i have just noticed that things have changed dramatically and we don't know why we hadn't noticed it sooner. I use to have to go to bed with our LO at the beginning of the night (~9pm) and would nurse him every 1-2hours until morning. We're not sure when it happened but he usually sleeps from 9pm-1am without waking and without me (ie. after i nurse him down he stays down without me beside him). So me and my hubby actually get to relax together from 9pm-12am. And because of this we usually end up going to bed really unwound and relatively relaxed, which is in stark contrast to what it was like for the first 6months of our LO's life. We had a couple of really hard weeks of nursing every hour and really restless sleep between 7-8months, but now have suddenly jumped into this really weirdly nice routine of having time to ourselves at the end of the night and less night nursing. And most recently his bedtime has been getting earlier which has been giving us even more time to ourselves in the evenings. My actual point is to say that our son has done all this without us having to do anything. We haven't changed our routines or parenting techniques to get him to sleep. He's gone from crappy sleeper to really crappy sleeper to pretty good sleeper all of the sudden.

I hope this gives you hope of things spontaneously improving on their own (and i hope our LO keeps this up).

[HappiLeigh]

My DS experienced a "sleep regression" around the time he turned four months. It lasted just over two weeks, and now (thankfully) we're back to him sleeping pretty well again. I didn't do anything but wait it out.
Good luck!

[SilverFish]

i think you could probably try putting her in the other room (is it close to yours?) and see what happens.

we have a ridiculously good sleeper over here... she's been doing 8-10 hours consistently since 3 1/2 months or more, but she didn't start doing that until she got her own space to sleep in. i didn't even realize how much we were disturbing each other's sleep until i put her in the crib to start the night one night (so we could have some "couple" time) and she just slept right through until about 5am. a couple weeks later, i was visiting my mom and had dd sleeping in my bed again. all night long we woke each other up... she'd grunt or something and wake me up, i'd shift and wake her up, and if it happened enough times, she'd wake up enough to want to nurse. not the end of the world, certainly, but not the solid stretches of sleep we'd been getting at home.

once we were home and she was starting the night in her crib again, we went right back to 8 hours. her room is right next to ours (and our rooms are so small, they're basically the same size as a normal master bedroom with a wall in the middle) so i hear any attention getting sounds she makes, but not the normal sleepy sounds...

anyway, it's worth a shot to put her to sleep in another space and just see what happens. if it doesn't work, you just bring her back to bed again. even the rare nights that my baby hasn't wanted to sttn, the couple hours at the beginning of the night with lots of room to stretch out and relax before she woke up to be fed were pretty blissful.

[Deir]

Thanks!! The thing that complicates this is Nora's weight gain has been iffy- (another totally foreign thing to me since my sons grew almost a lb a week for a few weeks and then pretty much 6-8 oz a week) So I WANT her to wake to nurse but right now it is more like whining and fussing- not good nursing.

Anyway- I am going to try the crib and see what happens. The worst that could happen is we go back to this new status quo and maybe she'll grow out of it!

Thanks so much ladies.

[sarahr]

My first was an awful sleeper from the beginning, then the 4 month sleep regression hit, and she stayed an even worse sleeper for months and months and months.

My second was a great sleeper from the beginning. Then he turned 4 months and was waking all the time. Now, at 5.5 months, we seem to be getting back on track to his normal awesomeness (not STTN, but that's not my standard/expectation).

I second the rec. for the crib. DS sleeps much better in the crib than next to me -- I don't know if that's because I wake him up or because I respond to noises he makes in his sleep that would be better left alone (and are, when I'm not so close).

[Deir]

Originally Posted by sarahr

My first was an awful sleeper from the beginning, then the 4 month sleep regression hit, and she stayed an even worse sleeper for months and months and months.

My second was a great sleeper from the beginning. Then he turned 4 months and was waking all the time. Now, at 5.5 months, we seem to be getting back on track to his normal awesomeness (not STTN, but that's not my standard/expectation).

I second the rec. for the crib. DS sleeps much better in the crib than next to me -- I don't know if that's because I wake him up or because I respond to noises he makes in his sleep that would be better left alone (and are, when I'm not so close).

Thanks! That gives me hope.

Added later- my only concern is that Nora will be so awake by the time I get her that it will be harder to get her back to sleep. has that been your experience?