Author Topic: No independent sleep anymore - 4 months DD lost her skills ?!?  (Read 1309 times)

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Offline LaraMom

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I am desperate and would LOVE to hear your advice on our situation:

DD2 is 4,5 months and used to fall asleep independently with shh/pat with only little crying. Since a few days she is screaming her head off at naptime as if she has no idea what to do and how to fall asleep (4 months sleep regression???). The crying goes on and on...so my husband rocks her to sleep or I feed her to sleep (and feel miserable about it!). We were thinking if she is OT or UT and changed her waketimes...nothing really helped.

When she falls asleep she is an awesome napper, we often have to wake her up after 2 hours to make sure she gets enough feedings in at daytime.

Falling asleep at bedtime has always been a fight and to be honest thats the only time of day when I feel (more or less) ok feeding to sleep.

Here is our routine:
DWT and feed 7
S 9-11 (starting wind down after 1:45-1:50 waketime)
E 11
S 1-3
E 3
S 5-5:30 (catnap in the baby carrier)
E 5:30
E 7 and bedtime (usually falls asleep at 8pm when feeding her again)
DF 10:30
one night feeding between 2:30 and 4


From time to time she won't fall asleep after her night feed and is up for 1-2 hours in the middle of the night. This is driving me insane because it even happens after good, restful days. I am tracking all sleep and just cannot find a reason for these night wakings...


I am wistfully waiting for your answers!! 
« Last Edit: July 10, 2018, 17:46:00 pm by LaraMom »
Tracy saved my life with DD1 and now happily implementing this great philosophy with DD2.

Offline creations

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Re: No independent sleep anymore - 4 months DD lost her skills ?!?
« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2018, 17:34:25 pm »
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Very cute - and I love how it is colour coordinated with the pic of you too! :)

It doesn't look like the usual 4 month regression to be honest as we usually see naps reducing to 40/45 min in length and your DD is still napping well when she gets to sleep.  Your A times in the day are fine and I see you've tried altering a little to see if she is better with a little more.

Possibly teething?  Teeth on the move (not cutting) can be uncomfortable enough to get in the way of relaxing for sleep even though it is not so painful that they are screaming in the A time, they are easily enough distracted from it.  Maybe try some pain meds 20 min before a nap to see if that makes any difference?

Have you introduced solids early?  Wondering if it could be gas.

Any reflux?  Again LOs can often be distracted from it in the A time and feel the discomfort when it's time to sleep.

Possible growth spurt and she's hungry?  You could try a top up feed before nap time if you have time for that?

One thing I found with my DS was that he would cry if he wanted me to put him down for sleep and not keep hold of him. He was tired and just wanted his bed, not to be held sung to or the wind down. Do you think this could be the case?  Have your tried putting her down just to see - of course pick up again if it isn't what she is trying to communicate to you.

The last A time before BT looks long. It comes after a CN and really I wouldn't expect her to stay awake as long for a full A time, or at max the full A time, it looks like it's going over. Could you cluster feed, get the bath done earlier and give her that other feed (the 8pm one where she falls asleep) earlier to reduce that last A time?  That could help with the NWs.

It may also be that she has some OT build up possibly from the long NWs, possibly from being woken every nap time.  Maybe try one nap where she can sleep until she is ready to wake rather than capping at 2hrs just to give her a chance to sleep until she's finished?

There is nothing glaring about your routine (in fact many of us would be very jealous you get those 2 hr naps!) so I've just tried to give a few ideas of things to think about.  hope something there might help.


Offline LaraMom

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Re: No independent sleep anymore - 4 months DD lost her skills ?!?
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2018, 08:01:46 am »
Thank you so much for your reply!
After I wrote my topic last week it got better and to be honest I think it had a lot to do with me...I was just not consistent enough and when I tried longer with shh/pat she fell asleep and now it takes again only a up to 10 minutes shh/patting and she falls asleep. So thats great! Nevertheless thank you so much for the ideas!

BUT the night waking got worse and today I have to do something about it. IŽll write another post to see if somebody else can help with the night wakings because its freaking me out! This night I dropped the DF because I was so exhausted and she woke at 3 am talking, I don't think she was hungry but I tried to feed her to sleep (she happily took the feed but was wide awake afterwards), after 1,5 hours talking and giggling she started crying and I gave her another little feed then she fell asleep.

This happened so often in the last month that I need to change something!

Quote (selected)
It may also be that she has some OT build up possibly from the long NWs, possibly from being woken every nap time.  Maybe try one nap where she can sleep until she is ready to wake rather than capping at 2hrs just to give her a chance to sleep until she's finished?

Maybe I let her have her first nap as long as she wants but to be honest I am afraid this will make the night even worse because for me it seems, that she just gets too much daytime sleep. Don't you think she is up because she is rested?? Doesn't being awake happily mean rested?

THANKD SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!! I don't know how I would survive motherhood without having this forum because here in Germany I have nobody to talk about schedules and stuff. here everybody seems to so AP :-(
Tracy saved my life with DD1 and now happily implementing this great philosophy with DD2.

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Re: No independent sleep anymore - 4 months DD lost her skills ?!?
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2018, 10:32:11 am »
It's good to hear the naps have resolved.
Good luck with the nights.