Why won't she go longer at night?

[southfacingpuddles]

My DD is four months and our nights are going from bad to worse... She used to go to bed with us (11ish) having cluster fed all evening, and then woke once at 4ish then slept till 7 and then again till 9/10am, but has recently started going down at 7.30/8ish. She then has one long stint and was waking around 2 then 5. I'm longing to get her to do her long stint after 11pm, so that it coincides with me going to bed, so i have tried waking her at 11 and feeding her a bottle. However, she drank 6oz formula at 11.20 and woke up screaming with hunger at 2.30... Which means I'm up twice, as she'll be up at. 5.30.

Has anyone else got the feeling that formula goes through their child quicker than breast milk (she was mostly bf but am stopping as work is looming in two weeks') and if so should I try hungry milk (have avoided as she was quite colicky)?

If you're still reading, thank you, I know this is very boring and the answer is 'this too shall pass' but any tips as to how to get her to last longer? She feeds three hourly through the day too - mostly ff now, the bf feeds I have left are mainly at night, but often each feed drags slowly on as she rarely gets through the bottle in one go.

Thanks for listening to the vent /rant!

could it just be her age?

lots of night wakings common at around 4 months due to developmental things and maybe a growth spurt.

can't link cos I'm on my phone, but if you search for '4 month sleep regression', you should get some info.

FWIW it did pass with my DS1, i went back to work just before he was 6 months and it had all calmed down (a bit) by then.

I've not used formula so can't help on that bit, sorry.

Waking more at 4 months is completely normal and is known as the 4 month sleep regression and agree with jaggy it could be a growth spurt or development change too.

As other have said is it not an age thing?! Everyone talks about the 16 week 'sleep regression'

Growth spurt territory. I'd say you were pretty lucky with her pattern before and now she sound =s more like a standard small baby - not helpful, I know.
Can you go to bed earlier for a while?

Do you want to swap to formula at night or do you want to keep the bfs at night and formula during the day?

If you do want to bf at night, have you tried feeding her in your bed? That way you might get some more sleep.

If you want to use the formula perhaps you could try the hungry baby milk just at night. Are you using anything for the colic? Perhaps you could put Dentinox in her bottles? It might also be worth reading this on colic.

As for the sleep though, I'm with jkk, you've been extremely lucky until now and she is just behaving like babies do . The suggestion of going to bed earlier is a good one and it's what most sleep deprived mothers do.

There are a few things you can do though, have a read of 31 ways to get your baby to sleep and stay asleep and sleeping through the night.

As stated above, it could all just be a growth spurt.

She is only still tiny though and wanting feeding in the night and a cuddle is normal and healthy .

If she's 4 months it could be time to up to hungry milk or, as I did (and before I get screamed at by the 'must be 6 months' police all the health people agreed) start with a little, thinly made baby rice at tea-time.

All of mine were hungry hungry hungry amd they all weaned early. No problems down the line-in fact it was recommended practice for the first one.

Disagree with you on that one ankle. I too weaned one at 4 months as was recommended at the tme and it did change the amount he slept, he slept worse. Not "screaming at you" but the but the evidence just doesn't agree with your suggestion.

The NHS also recommend that you look for the signs of readiness before offering any solids.

Things have moved on since we had our first babies .

I don't profess to know it all..and the 'best advice' reply to all these questions is ask your HV.
With my four they were hungry and weaning wasn't a drama (little one 3yr this mth and weaned early with HV's full blessing). Mind you they were worse than the dog for 'hound eyes', lip smacking and watching every mouthful if you had something that smelt nice by then.
Little gannets the lot of them :o

I feel your pain op. My dd is 11 weeks old and ebf. she too used to sleep from 11ish till 4 or 5 then back down till about 7am. Bliss. For the past 4 nights she has woken every 90 mins thru the night to feed! Aghhh!

It was just before 4 months that DS turned from a badish sleeper into a horendous one

I don't have much advice as we're only just coming out of it (he's now 9 months! although to be fair the last few weeks have been bad because of illness, and he started to sleep better around 6 months only to have a set-back when I had to go away for work)

however what has worked this week has been putting a mattress on DS's floor. He goes down in his cot and at his first wake-up after I've gone to bed, I sleep with him on the mattress. He has gone from waking up every 2 hours to waking up once, maximum twice a night

As for going back to work - have you considered mixed feeding? I feed morning and evening and he has bottles and solids in the day. When he was sleeping badly I would BF through the night too but now I'm co-sleeping we have a cuddle and a BF and then he goes off to sleep. It's bloody fantastic! hope I haven't jinxed it

feekerry do you think it could be the 12 week growth spurt?

There has actually been scientific research on special formula milk that is supposed to help your baby sleep more. And the scientists concluded that it doesn't make any difference.

Maybe jilted but she's not even 3 months yet. I think she just likes to remind me on an hourly basis how cute her face is at god knows what hour!