4 month old sleeping advice

[Bugsymum]

I am a first time mum and completely new to this discussion forum, so please bear with me!

My little boy is four months old and seems to want to feed or comfort on my breast a lot during the night. He has never slept for longer than a couple of hours at a time and has always fed quite often so I don't think this is due to a growth spurt.

His best sleep is when he goes down to bed between 7 - 8 and he will sleep for about 3 hours though often wakes in between that time and my husband or I need to go and settle hime. I feed him when he wakes around 11 and he will then go to sleep for another one and a half or two hours. From about 1.30, his sleeping seems light and he tends to end up in our bed as he wants to feed at least every hour and sometimes he is just soothing on me and not sleeping and would stay latched on for hours! If I don't let him, he will scream. We recently tried my husband trying to get him to sleep when he woke in the middle of the night and we knew he wasn't hungry but after he screamed for almost two hours, I gave in and once he was at my breast for a few minutes, he fell asleep!

This can mean me holding him for 4 - 5 hours at night while he feeds and soothes on me and I don't know how to break this.

He has only ever been breastfed and refuses to take a bottle or soother.

Has anyone else expereinced this? Should I let him have this comfort?

We also rock him to sleep or sometimes he falls asleep when feeding because he will not sleep in his cot on his own and I think he is still too young to try any sleep training methods - do you agree?

Also, during the day, he will only sleep in my arms, in the car or his pram. When he is laid in his cot asleep during the day, he wakes up after about five minutes.

I'd really appreciate any advice that anyone may have as four months of sleep deprivation is starting to take its toll!

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[issysmilkbottle]

hi, my dd (16 weeks) is exactly the same during the day but thankfully not so bad at night...

Dd will feed for about 45mins and then comfort suck while asleep until i unlatch and move her into her cot. We usually start bedtime around 7 including massaging a little of johnson and johnsons night time lotion on her tum and legs, i also pop her into a 'gro-bag' and tuck her in with 1 blanket, our room is typically 18-20 degrees warm... She doesnt like full swaddling and stretches her arms out... She'll then sleep for 4-6 hours, once 8 hours! Although at times she has woken after 2 hours...
When she wakes i quickly pop her on the bed and lie with her to feed for about 10 mins and then carefully lift her back to her cot, after her long sleep she'll then only do about 2 hours at a time so i repeat the feed thing until she decides its play time around 6-7am... If she's in a good mood i'll leave her in her cot and she sometimes, well rarely, drifts back to sleep....

The last few nights if she wakes within an hour of a decent feed i've not lifted her out but kept it dark and patted her tum going shhh-shhh, that seems to have worked to get her to settle without the boob! Hope i havent just jinxed myself!

I'd be interested in peoples advice re the daytime naps - i really dont want to have to walk for hours each day and it would be nice to have a nap at the same time as dd occasionally!

Good luck x

[Trudi2009]

Hi Bugsymum

This is just my opinion but I think you're letting your baby pick up too many sleep crutches. 4 months is a little early to sleep train but it's not too early to try and get rid of bad sleep habits like only sleeping in your arms, whilst being at your breast or needing to be rocked and never in their cot. The longer it goes on, the more they think that this is the way things are supposed to be.

I had all these problems with my 4 month old twins. My doctor was great in advising on a few things that really helped. Such as:

Putting your baby in the cot for little 10 minute intervals throughout the day. Stay by the cot doing something soothing like rubbing their tummy or stroking their head for the first 5 minutes and then leave them for the remaining 5 minutes. They will cry at first but after a few days of doing this they start not to mind the crib so much and once they are relaxed there's a better chance of them falling asleep in the crib. I did this a couple of times a day and saw a difference after about 3 days.

Another thing I was advised to do and wasn't keen on but it worked like a charm was stretching their feed out. It's a vicious circle. If you feed them every 1.5 hours then they will feel hungry and wake every 1.5 hours. So I stretched the feed starting during the day when I wasn't so exhausted and could cope with the crying. I was advised that a 4 month old can go up to 4 hours without a feed but you have to get them to that gradually, even extending it by as little as 15 mins every day for a week.

It's not a must but if you want a little sanity and the chance for your husband to help then it's worth persisting trying a bottle. My doctor advised to try it when the baby is at its hungriest and during the day when the baby isn't too tired. It's also best if your husband does it too as the baby will smell the breast milk on you and obviously prefer that.

So I did all this and they are now sleeping in 4 to 6 hour chunks and my husband sometimes does one of the night feeds which means I can get 8 hours sleep sometimes. I'm starting to feel human again. It?s not perfect but it?s a hell of a lot better than it was.

Hope this helps.

[bearhug]

Remember that 16 weeks is growth spurt time! You need to let him feed often now to increase your supply. Very hard to cope with just now, I know that. But it will get better soon. Have a look over at the Breast and Bottle feeding section, there is lots of information there about this.

[tiredpooky]

have you tried the lying down feed and co sleeping?
DD suddenly accepted the cot for day naps at 5m old
also as she got older had to hold her less at night to sleep and now she wont sleep next to me in bed, prefers to roll away or in cot (9m now)