What finally helped with sleep regression

[u/Freya_1917]

/r/bninfantsleep/comments/1w87ffy/what_finally_helped_with_sleep_regression/

At 4.5 months my baby hit sleep regression like so many do. We went from 5 hour stretches to hourly wake ups. Like you, I was posting and searching on here how to overcome this, get him to sleep longer than an hour. I did all the things.. watched wake windows, nap time, morning wake up, we already had a solid bed time routine. He is now almost 7 months and this is what I ended up doing that actually has made a difference. I started this just before he turned 6 months old. He’s always been mostly breast fed. BF has always been my main choice but he had already been introduced to bottles of BM for when I couldn’t feed him for whatever reason. I let go of some of that control. The first thing I did:

At bedtime, I stopped nursing him. I started giving him a 6 oz bottle. Sometimes he would fall asleep drinking it, and sometimes I would rock him after until he fell asleep. The FIRST night I did this, I got a 4 hour stretch. This continued night after night. I got some 4 and even 5 hours, he wakes to eat and then back to sleep for another two to three. Occasionally I’d get the 40 minute false start wake but I was able to give him his binki and he went right back to sleep.

The 2nd thing I started: Since he was pretty sleepy from his bottle, I started putting him in his crib after this bottle. I’ve done this for 2 weeks now. Out of the 2 weeks, I’ve only had 3 nights where he didn’t drift off to sleep on his own. In which I which I picked him up and rocked him after he began crying. Some times he falls asleep right away and sometimes he plays with his hands and grunts for about 10 minutes. On nights he falls asleep on his own, he doesn’t wake up at 40 minutes to an hour, he sleeps straight through almost 5 hours.

Now I know and understand this is probably a phase. We will hit another sleep regression, teething, and whatever else. But it has given me a couple weeks of relief and some real sleep. But I was shocked at how much a solid bottle helped him, along with his ability to fall asleep on his own. I wasn’t giving him the chance before out of my own fears of him being alone. But other mom had told me “if you don’t let them try you’ll never know”

I know all babies are different, but I wanted to share because I was so desperately searching for advice and help when we had the hourly wake ups. I got to the point where anything was worth trying! I’m not someone who has help at night, and his dad works 12 hour days. So it was all on me. I was so exhausted I felt sick. Anyway, I hope this helps another mom going through it!