3/4 month sleep advice please

[TwinkleStars15]

My little girl has always been a pretty good sleeper from birth, we'd just got up to 10pm - 4am, quick feed and down again until 6/7am.....however the last week or so have not been great and last night she woke 45mins after I put her down and then every hour until 3am. I'm guessing this might be the dreaded 4 month sleep regression?!

Why should I do? Let her cry for a bit? I've never let her cry before Feed her because it settles her back to sleep? Not feed her because it's becoming a bad habit? Pick her up and cuddle her?

She's in a side cot but mainly co-sleeps. I always put her down in her cot first off and she stays there until she first wakes up but now that's happening more frequently I tried putting her back in her cot every time but it didn't go well! She doesn't have a dummy and is breastfed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Honestly? I just used to feed mine. I breastfed and it was pretty much my go to solution for everything. Not sleeping? Feed. Crying? Feed. Looking sad? Feed. Etc etc.

3/4 months is really still tiny, you won't form life long bad habits or anything like it. They change all the time so I wouldn't t get hung up on routine or what they did last week. Might be a growth spurt, might just be hungry, might be a bit cold, teeth might be bothering her, might be brewing a cold or something.

Try a bit of a cuddle and a rock, try a quick feed.

Well you could let her cry, but do you want to or do you feel you should?

Will she settle if you put a hand on her tummy?

Feeding her won’t start any bad habits either, but then I’ve never seen feeding my babies as a bad habit

Hace you read this on Kellymim too?

Cross posted and spelt have wrong. Apart from that think it went ok!

No I don't want to let let cry but also don't want her waking up every hour expecting a feed! She slept much better last night, only woke twice for a feed and a couple of times I managed to settle her back down.

Next question lol - she goes down around 10pm after a bath, swaddle, feed etc. She wakes up in the morning anywhere between 7-9 but always wants to go back to sleep after 30-45 minutes so we just stay in bed and play, sing, chat etc but means she doesn't actually get up until 10 or 11am! Is this okay? Should I put her to bed earlier? It works for us because we do the bedtime routine and all go to bed together but should we be putting her to bed earlier and staying downstairs until we're ready for bed? The advice is to sleep in the same room until she's 6 months?

Both of my girls went to bed around 10ish until they started solids. It was just easier. All our friends kids had a 7pm bedtime and seemed to be really stressed about it, whereas we floated along and it seemed a lot less stressful.

If you want, just gradually start shifting bedtime forward, but mornings will be earlier too. If you don't, don't. As for sleeping in the same room, once they got to about 4-5 months ours slept in our room alone for naps etc. The monitor was on, we popped in and out and it was fine. Others wouldn't agree with that method.

We seemed to form more of a routine when solids came into play. From memory, 5/6 months looked like:

7am-ish Wake and feed
8am-ish Breakfast
9.30am-ish Nap
11amish Wake and feed
12pm ish Lunch
1.30pm-ish Nap
3pm Wake and feed
5pm Cat nap
5.30pm Dinner
7pm Bed
Probably feeding again at 11pm/2am and possibly at 9pm and 4am too

Honestly, don't get hung up on what others do or books tell you too. Do what suits your family/lifestyle.

Eventually though, getting them into bed early is nice and it gives you an evening back

I would settle her back to sleep in whatever way works. Not all wake ups are for a feed, so she may not be hungry (but offering a feed won't create a bad habit anyway). But figure out what works to settle her to sleep and do that. I wouldn't leave her to cry as she's waking because she needs something, even if that's just comfort. Mine pretty much always woke because she wanted a feed and at that age, I would offer it first before anything else as it just worked best (and meant she wouldn't then wake up another hour later hungry). But when she didn't go back to sleep straight away after a feed, just lots of cuddles until she did. It will pass.

I would start putting her to bed earlier. It's normal for them to sleep 12+ hours a night. Even my nearly 5 year old sleeps about 11 hours, so if you want to get up and start your day before 10-11am, then I would put her to sleep earlier so she gets plenty of sleep, but you can still do things during the day. You'll have to do it gradually though.

I’d start putting her to bed earlier as I think she’s showing you that she wants 12 hours; I wanted to follow the safe sleep advice but from 3 months my DD would be so unsettled from 7.30pm in the bright noisy lounge and would calm down once in a dark quiet room that we started a bedtime routine and now at 6 months I’m really glad I did.
During the sleep regression I would say just feed her when she wakes, that’s what I did and it lasted quite a while (3-4 weeks) but then she naturally got back into sleeping from 7.30pm-4am, feed and back to sleep until 7.30ish.
I didn’t do the bedtime gradually though, one day I just started the bedtime routine at 7.15 and first night it took 2 hours to get her down, second night twenty minutes less and within a week and half she’d be in bed 5 minutes after finishing her feed. I think as they get older it’s harder to bring a later bedtime forward though.
I also did a dream feed at 10.30 before I went to bed and after about a month she dropped that/wouldn’t feed and still slept until 4am/

Sorry forgot to add, do what you feel is best for your baby and you . About a month before I started an early bedtime routine I got myself quite stressed thinking I should be as I knew others who had but also felt my DD wasn’t ready whereas when I did it I felt she was ready.

7am, 10.30am, 2pm, 6.30pm And 10.30pm feeds. Sleeps about 7.30pm-7am and has a dream feed. 3mo. My daughter didn’t sleep through the night until she dropped her naps at 2y though x

Thank you all for your tips and advice. Her bedtime works for us at the moment and I don't mind her sleeping until 9-10, our groups don't start until 11.30am so that's fine. I think when she gets to 6 months and we start weaning and having regular mealtimes I'll move her bedtime earlier and leave her upstairs to sleep. I've never kept an eye on her feeding frequency, I just feed her when she's hungry, sometimes that's more often than others but I guess it's around 3-4 hourly, I'm quite relaxed and have never been a clock watcher. Again, when she gets to 6 months I suppose this will be easier as she'll have mealtimes.

Thanks again, I'm going to carry on doing what we are as it works for us and not worry until she's 6 months. Coincidentally her 6 month mark falls on Christmas Day so she'll be joining us for dinner

I'm sure you've read up on the 4 month sleep regression, the only thing I'd suggest is trying to ensure she's not totally fast asleep after the feed at night when you put her back down.

This regression is about becoming unsettled when they realise they aren't in the same circumstances they were when they fell asleep.

Definitely don't feed each and every time she wakes. I did that with my son throughout each sleep regression and he's now 10 months old and STILL a horrendous sleeper. I consider it to be a good night if he only wakes up three times. Usually I have to go in to around 5 times because of the bad sleep associations I fell victim to.

My baby sleeps similar to yours, and is 4 months. We are also going through this, and seem to be coming out the other side of it.

When she wakes up early (like 2am), we have been trying to soothe her without food. Ovvyif she was distressed and wanting it, we'd give it, but she hasn't been acting hungry but awake.

Night 1, we did offer food but she declined. She was awake for an hour before settling back down. Woke up at usual time then for bottle.

Night 2. I didn't offer milk because she didn't seem hungry, just awake, so I soothed her back to sleep instead. Took 20 mins. Woke at usual time for food.

Night 3. Again, didn't offer food, went back after 10 mins. Woke at usual time for food.

What we are trying g to avoid is reverse cycling because she's waking more at night. I think our system is going well, and I'm hoping that eventually she'll stop waking at 2 altogether.

Given you a re breastfeeding, if you want to try to soothe back rather than feed, you might want your partner to do it instead so that your baby isn't being hugged by a tempting milk bottle ;-)