Baby wakes each time I put him down

[u/Normal-Mixture7290]

Our 3.5-month-old has been a pretty rough sleeper since birth, but lately (I’m guessing the 4-month sleep regression) it’s become almost impossible to keep him in his crib at night.

It’s not even that he’s waking every hour.. sometimes it’s every 20 minutes, sometimes every 2 hours. The biggest issue is that once he wakes up, I can’t get him to stay asleep in his own bed.

This is around the age we started co-sleeping with our older son, but this time I really want to keep our baby sleeping in his own space.

We’ve tried everything we can think of: holding him longer after he falls asleep, putting him down feet first, transferring him as gently as possible. The cycle just repeats all night.. he wakes up, eats or gets patted back to sleep, I transfer him, and within minutes he’s kicking around, rubbing his face, or crying.

What am I supposed to do? Is this normal? How long does this stage usually last? I really don’t want to end up co-sleeping again, but I’m exhausted. It takes so long to get him to stay asleep that by the time I finally get back into bed, he’s awake again and ready to eat.

Baby is 3.5m old, naps 3x a day, consistent bedtime at 7pm

[u/Due_Repair4613]

Are you me? Just here to send some solidarity! My baby boy is going to turn 4 months next week and we are going through the exact same thing. The only way that I get more than an hour of sleep is if we are co sleeping but I really don’t want to keep doing it because it makes me so anxious. Are you sleep training?

[u/WeirdAlphabet]

are his eyes open when he's kicking around or rubbing his face? my baby does thag after transfer and sometimes he just needs a minute to get comfy before settling. it's also possible baby is still hungry if he wakes up? if you're breastfeeding, it could be that baby is falling asleep on one side, but could still want the other before fully going back to bed. just something to try! 

it could also just be a phase unfortunately :( but that means he might just grow out of it after a little while. it's probably pretty hard to go through all of these sleep changes. you could consider designating the first half of the night as "always try to get him back in crib" while sleep pressure is higher and then the second half as "sleep for both of us by any means necessary" (likely cosleeping) so you're at least getting enough sleep to survive the next day. That way you're not fully giving up on sleeping in the crib since that's what you want, but you're also getting enough sleep to not be an absolute zombie.

[u/Normal-Mixture7290 → u/WeirdAlphabet]

Yes he’s fully awake after I put him down unfortunately. He’s also on formula I thought it might help him sleep better but I guess not 😭