I’m writing this as a vulnerable and humble FTM, I’m not sure what I’m looking for posting this, solidarity, sympathy, advice, reassurance, but around 16 weeks my LO’s sleep has completely fallen apart. He’s 20 weeks now and I don’t know how much longer I can deal with it.
For context, he’s never been a great sleeper. I EBF and he has a dairy, soy and egg intolerance which took a little while to figure out and improve through elimination diet so the gas pains would keep him up a lot in the night. Around 3 months, things started to get better and he would be able to give us a good long 4-6hour stretch at the start of the night in his bassinet, wake up for a feed, I’d hold him for 20 mins or so before putting him in the bassinet and he’d get another hour or two, one more feed and then he’d usually only settle back for more sleep in my partners arms or co-sleeping (safely!!). For naps, we’ve been contact napping and I’ve been trying to introduce 1 crib nap in the morning to for the past 2 months but he will only sleep 20-30 mins before waking up.
I’ve been mindful of sleep associations and trying to foster good sleep habits but at this point I feel like I’m in survival mode. When 16 weeks hit, we started seeing basically every sign of sleep regression possible. He’s refusing to sleep in his bassinet or crib (even if transferred when deeply asleep his eyes pop open), he is waking every hour or so in the night, he cannot be settled back to sleep if he’s lying on his back (needs to be picked up or fed), he is refusing his pacifier, he’s taking longer to fall asleep and fighting naps/bedtime, his new thing is he needs my nipple in his mouth the entire time he’s sleeping and when it falls out he wakes up and can’t be resettled. We have been safely cosleeping all night this last week but even at that he is up every 2 hours and after 3am he won’t be resettled lying next to me.
I track his wake windows during the day and watch for sleepy cues. He’s on 4 naps a day and is usually asleep by 8:30-9pm. I’ve tried 3 naps (have to do all contact to make sure they’re long enough) and getting him down closer to 7-7:30 but he will cry so loudly until around 8:30 and then fall asleep.
Logically I know that this normal and a phase and we need to ride it out and remain consistent but I can’t be consistent with our typical sleep routine and arrangements because he is just refusing them. I don’t expect no wakes up in the night but having to hold our LO from 3am onwards feels impossible. We are going on 4 weeks of this and my partner and I are exhausted. Our friends with kids either have “good sleepers” (they are living an entirely different experience) or have sleep trained (not interested). Any words of wisdom from parents on the other side of this would be so appreciated.