u/Decent_Grapefruit952

We're deep in the middle of the 4 month sleep regression with our 4.5 month son, complete with 30 minute naps day and night, wake windows out the window, false starts aplenty every night and early rises. Everything is a constantly moving target and I'm at my wits end and don't know what to do any more. My partner and I have taken to sleeping in shifts through the night, my pdd is constantly being triggered and my head is full of intrusive thoughts. I know the first step with sleep training is to get into a decent schedule but I feel like we're currently trapped in a cycle of chronic sleep deprivation which throws off naps which throws off bedtimes. For example, last night we ended up putting him to bed at 8.40 (after trying for half an hour to get him down) and he'd been awake for over 4 hours at that point (had refused a bridge nap at 5.30). He then slept for 40 mins, woke crying, had to be rocked back to sleep, slept for 50 mins, and continued like this through the night except for a random 2 hour stint at 11 and 2, and then no more than half an hour from 4am, and usually only 10 minute sleeps till we started the day at 6.40. He fell asleep while feeding (EBF) around 7.45 but only slept for 20 minutes and I've just spent 40 minutes trying to get him down for another nap. I'm pretty sure he's a low sleep needs baby, we worked out the other day that he seems to get about 15 hours daily wake time at the moment which feels like far too much for this age but just can't get him to sleep more during the day, and certainly not at night. I'm sat here terrified of when he wakes and dread every evening, and honestly just feel miserable and guilty for not enjoying time with my son any more. Do I just have to ride it out until he connects sleep cycles and gets through the regression so we can get on more of a schedule before sleep training? Or can sleep training address some of these issues even if I can't seem to get on any kind of regular wake windows/nap schedule?

We're right in the middle (or hopefully near the end) of the 4 month sleep regression and slowly losing our minds! Our son used to sleep a good 5-6 hour chunk at the beginning of the night but since 3 months old that slowly became 3 hours, then 2, and now at 4.5 months old, he's taken up the fun habit of just napping through the night, waking every 30-50 minutes and needing to be rocked or fed back to sleep each time (EBF). He had a sleep routine of feed, bath/lotion, story, song and then rocking to sleep (then in bed by 9.30PM) and that worked for us just fine but no longer! His naps during the day are also only ever 30-50 minutes long, though the last few days he's surprised us by randomly doing a 1.5 hour nap for his first one. He has also always stayed awake far past the suggested wake windows for his age and if we tried to put him down too early, would fight a nap for 30 minutes while I slowly lost the will to go on. Here's an example day from the last week (bearing in mind, I think it's affected by a cold and his own sleep deprivation):

Wake at 7 AM, 3.25/1.5/3.25/3

After that last wake window we put him down for bed around 7 (been attempting to move bedtime a bit earlier but that may have been too early), he woke after an hour, fed for 20 minutes, and then slept for 1 hour, and then began the dance of sleep 10 minutes, wake, cry, rock or feed, sleep 20 minutes, etc. etc. before a random 3 hour stretch at 12, and 30-50 minute stretches thereafter. Since then, we've just moved back to a bedtime closer to 9/9.30 but there isn't any difference in his night sleep. I'm at the end of my tether here, no idea how many naps he really should be doing at his age because he seemed to fight the last one so I tried switching to 3 but then that seemed to bring bedtime far too early, and anyway there is no such thing as a long stretch of sleep any more! We've been doing the nights in shifts just to get some semblance of sleep, and I co-sleep with him on my shift (note: he doesn't sleep any better even with that) and just feed him back to sleep after each wake because I don't have the energy to do otherwise. Over the last week, he's been getting an average of 8 hours of sleep (3 of day sleep) which surely is far too little, and he seems to wake up in the morning still tired. For naps he does sleep in his bedside crib (or pram if we're out), and he usually starts the night there but ends up in bed with us by the end.

I hear this is a good age to start sleep training but we don't have the mental fortitude for any extended periods of crying (like, even 5 minutes at top volume is too hard). Which low crying approach has worked for people? I tried PUPD for one night but he seemed to get frustrated very quickly. I know I need to pick an approach and commit to it for some time but I also don't know if this will just get better by itself anyway if I do nothing. He currently has a cold and has just had a round of vaccinations - would it be better to wait till he's over both to start any form of training? All help/advice/sympathy/success stories welcome (and sorry if I've made any formatting errors here!)