My baby will turn 5 months in a few days and his sleeping habits have gone through a whole whirlwind and i’m desperate for some help. For context, i am exclusively breastfeeding (latching)
Birth - 6 weeks: slept easily in the crib with minimal support
6 - 8 weeks: regression hit where he would cry the minute i put him down (even for awake time) - this is when i started contact napping. He however continued to be able to sleep well in the crib at night.
8 - 10 weeks: started crying alot when sleeping in the crib at night, also needing more help to fall asleep in the day (by latching). Started cosleeping, which stopped the crying and reduced the waking - was pretty consistent with only waking twice to feed (12am & 4am)
11 - 15 weeks: continued contact napping & cosleeping, but started rejecting dad to put him to sleep. Would occasionally sleep with dad for ~2 hours at night
16 - 17 weeks: started accepting dad for naps but only on carrier walks. Bedtime always mum
4 months: sleep regression hits hard - refuses nap, refuses latching to sleep, cries hard each time. Naps only worked in the carrier. Bedtime wants to nurse to sleep but its a battle of crying and finding the sweet spot at the right time to latch.
Now (almost 5 months): sleep regression seems to be coming to an end. Happily and calmly latches to sleep in the day time, naps can last 1-1.5 hours sometimes (still contact napping). Carrier naps with dad still smooth. Night wakings however have turned to every 1.5-2 hours, and he needs to latch to go back to sleep. He’s also waking earlier and earlier. Additionally have started him at nursery (day 2)
I never expected to contact nap and cosleep but was happy to do it while it helped my baby sleep well. However the night wakings are getting impossible to deal with. I go back to work in 4 weeks and really need to figure out how to help him nap in the crib and reduce night wakings (ok to cosleep but could also be in the crib).
His wake windows are usually 1.5/2/2.25/2/1.75 - he gets overtired super easily and goes into a loop of hard crying and wanting to but refusing to sleep. Nursery has now thrown his schedule into a loop as well and we’re still figuring that out because he refuses to nap with the teachers.
Sorry for the long post, its my first time posting and wanted to give as much context as possible. Any advice would be helpful. I’ve tried the FIO method, tried putting him in the crib drowsy but awake but he wakes up either crying or happy everytime. I’m resisting trying any cry-it-out methods because even when being held he can cry hard for over an hour (when overtired / overstimulated) until he chokes. I’m worried if i let him cry it out it could go on for hours.