the witching month??

good morning all
after my 14th consecutive night of up every 2 hourness,I started to think about the so called "witching month" meaning the 4th month.My lo has been sleeping well pretty much from the day we bought him home,but suddenly,just when I thought all was going so well,he is having very restless nights with bouts of screaming,fussing and even singing!(just to balance things out I guess!)I have been up almost every 2 hours every night and have literally tried everything from sleeping with him,dummies,infants friend,swaddling,not swaddling,rocking, patting.....-nothing is making any difference and the only way he calms down is to be fed-even though it may have only been an hour!!I am starting to feel really down due to lack of sleep and last night cried with him as I am so tired.
Has anyone else been through or is going through a similar phase?Is there an end in sight sometime soon or do I just need to get over it and accept that this is probably how its going to be for the next few months?
Your shared experiences would be much appreciated and I guess I would also take some comfort in knowing that I am not alone.

Oh you're not alone. Started at 5 months here and still going! :hug:

Oh, that's such hard work!

Around 4 months is often a tough time for babies. Mine is 4 months, and also pretty unsettled, though I think we are now through the worst of it (hopefully).

The reason for this going on is that baby is learning to understand their world in a new way. The unsettled phase is also connected with lots of wonderful things that he or she will learn how to do, like rolling over, holding things and manipulating them with his/her hands, more sophisicated language (babblings, I mean, of course) and so on. You can be sure that there is a reason for all of this, it isn't random, and that your baby will come through this stage with a host of new skills to develop and refine.

A good book about this stuff is called The Wonder Weeks. It explains the usual periods when babies have fussy stages and what is going on in their brain development at the time. The main message is that this is normal, it is healthy (necessary, even, so baby can learn all these new things), and that it won't last.


I think I recall that the book says that the 4-month "wonder week" lasts up to a few weeks in some babies, and that most babies can expect a "sunny patch" by the time they are about 21 weeks old. So things should be better by then for you (for the time being).

I do hope you start to get more sleep soon.

Still having issues here with the 8mo. In fact - she has been worse the past week or so :wall: I'm just riding the wave and hoping it will get better ........

thanks for taking the time to share,and big thanks to Tenar for your insight and recommendation,it brightened up another grey sleep deprived morning :)

We are just coming out of a similar phase - DS is 20.5 weeks old and we have had a very rough 2 weeks, our smiling happy boy has been a fussy, grissly, crying wreck, waking more frequently for feeds throughout the night etc, but in the last 24-48 hours I've noticed a change - Hang in there!!

Some one told me that its around this time they start to discover they are their own person (eg not a part of Mum) so its a big milestone time :) Tenar - your info is excellent - thanks, helped me understand a little more too

Naomi
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