4 month old stopped sleeping at night

[zannary]

We finally got our 4 month old dd into a bit of a routine and she goes to bed at 8 every night usually without too much fuss. she will sleep until about 12:30 have a smaller feed (4oz) because she falls asleep mid feed and then we'll go another 4 hours and at about 4:30-5 she won't go back down unless I have her in the bed. now along with that she is waking all the time...Please help! I don't know what to do?

It's pretty common for babies to have something called a sleep regression at about 4 months. I promise it will get better but the best thing you can do is meet your baby's needs and ride it out.

Uhoh! I didn't know about this and I've just looked it up
seems we have our work cut out for a while then!
should I be cutting out the 5am sleep with us. It's the only way I can get a good solid 3/4 hours sleep in the morning? am I building a rod for my own back if I don't stop?

It's honestly up to you. I personally don't believe in the whole "rod for your own back" thing and did whatever I needed to do to stay sane which includes co-sleeping. I still take our 21 month old into bed with us if he has a bad night or if we have a lie in. It's an arrangement that works well for our family. It happens less now than it did when he was younger and I'm confident he won't be sleeping in our bed forever so for now I just enough the snuggles.
Obviously follow safe co-sleeping guidelines but I really believe in going with the flow when it comes to babies, much less stressful!

Head over to the sleep forum! You'll find loads of kindered spirits there who are going through this too. Been there, it was hard but it does pass

All I can say is do whatever it takes. If that means a bit of co-sleeping then so be it. You can ease back out of it once the sleep starts to settle again.

Definitely have a read up on the 4 month sleep regression. When you know a bit about the developmental changes that underlie it, it starts to make sense. Not that that makes it any easier. In my experience you will have ample opportunity to read scholarly articles about it at 11pm, and 1, 3 and 5am for several weeks.

Just keep repeating, "this is not forever"!