My 4 month old wakes up at 4am and I CANNOT get him back to sleep

[JKDcot]

My 4 month old goes back to sleep after his earlier feeds well but after the 4am one he thinks it’s morning and refuses to sleep. I rock, dummy, sway, white noise. Everything. He is awake for hours. I am losing my mind. Any advice please

Depending what time he goes to bed it could possibly be a suiteable wake up time for him, it will change you got few more sleep regression to come yet
My 1 year old gets up 5:30 every day without fail

I’d be tempted to try and get him a dream feed at 3:30 to see if he takes the bottle whilst half asleep and goes back off

What happens if you leave him after being fed and burped? Or just put him next to you in a strapped in baby bouncer seat?

Is he upset? Because if not, I’d just leave him to roll around.

4 month sleep regression is a doozy. Baby brain development is massive in the first year. Huge stuff happening in their brain around 4 months, particularly around linking sleep cycles. They get so wired that they just CAN’T sleep, no matter what you do. We used to call them “brain farts”. You’re probably just wasting your effort.

I remember DS being up for 2+ hours in the night for no obvious reason, just wide awake. Drove me crazy too until I realised I couldn’t actually do anything to change it.

Personally, I’d feed, burp, change and put back to bed. As long as baby doesn’t need anything and is calm, let baby’s brain do it’s thing and you roll over and go back to sleep. I found very light foam ear plugs helpful, block out the snuffling and fidgeting but you can hear coughs, whinging etc. Don’t fight it, just get yourself a couple hours more sleep. As mention above, there’s a few more sleep regressions to come and sometimes they just need some time to pass. And it will pass, just remember that.

Thank you for the advice. I think I just have to give up trying to get him to sleep and realise as you guys say, he is just going to be awake. I will try tonight to feed, burp, change and then just let him lay in bed playing. He basically just sucks his hands and babbles.... he isn’t upset. Hopefully that helps and he can chill out until he starts to cry then I will pick him up and put him to sleep...?

He’s having a super long nap this morning ...