4 month sleep regression still?!

[firsttimemum4]

A little long winded but a bit of a background on our little one -

From roughly 8 weeks old our daughter started to sleep through. This would be from 8/9pm - 7/8 am. It started off with a feed at 5am then she kept pushing it 30 min forward each day to when she was waking at 7/8am for a feed only. AMAZING I know .

She’s always been very good with settling herself, very independent and not needing to be cuddled to sleep, rocked or even put down to sleep. If she wanted to sleep she would let me know and within minutes she’d be out for the count. Day and night.

Then comes our 4 month mark. Pretty much to the day, she was refusing to go to sleep until 10/11pm, waking up every 30 mins to an hour from there and wanting to start her day at 5am.

She has ever so slowly stopped waking up every hour, but she’s even more unpredictable now.

She is starting to go to sleep around 7/8/9pm again but then waking up at 1/2am, usually a feed is the only thing that will settle her again and she goes straight back to sleep after/during her bottle … but then another 2 hours later she’s either ready for the day or wakes us up by being wide awake blowing bubbles (spitting) and laughing away to herself. A few times now we’ve given in and got her in bed with us and she’s gone straight back to sleep.

Last night she
8pm fed and asleep in bed.
9pm she woke up (wide awake laughing) so I got her up and within 30 mins she fell asleep cuddling me. (I never normally get her up but I was staying at my parents so thought I would get her back up if she wanted to play)
12pm she woke up so I fed her and she went straight back to sleep.
2/3am (I assume, I didn’t check the time) she woke up wanting to play so I got her in bed with me and she cuddled into me and went back to sleep.
6:30am woke up to start the day.

What can we do to encourage her to sleep longer?! We usually dream feed around 10/11pm but whether we dream feed or not it doesn’t affect her wanting to get up and play OR feed again at 2am. To go from a baby sleeping through to a baby waking up 2/3 times a night is such hard work, especially when it’s not just a feed and sleep, it’s time to play or get up in her eyes!

Pleaaaaase she’s some light at the end of the tunnel or even things that may help her to sleep longer stretches again.

Could she be hungry? I started giving mine baby rice at this age. I know officially it's 6 months (according to guidelines) but you might find that's the reason. I'm not suggesting you do the same, but just wondering if that might be the reason.

How old are they now?

Same happened to me at 4 month regression and took several months to get back to only waking at 4/5am.

Bedtime routine to indicate bedtime . Bath helps tire mine out and signals bedtime . Always get lots of eye rubbing in the bath. Book in bed with the same ending and kiss goodnight.

If they wake , stay in the room with lights off and help soothe back to sleep with as little intervention as possible. Obviously unless teething / nappy etc

Consistency and employ some sleep training principals you are comfortable with.

I'm feeling particularly grouchy today so struggling to muster up any sympathy given that's less than my 18 month old 🙈 but that's not your fault so...

No particular advice (because my kids don't sleep) but the change at 4 months is a permanent change to how they sleep - they start REM and non-REM sleep cycles, and they wake so often because they can't link cycles. It can take a while for that to happen but you should see gradual improvement, but it doesn't suddenly go back to how it was before unfortunately.

I was in a similar situation. My daughter slept through from about 6 weeks, then the 4 month sleep regression hit and she was up a few times a night. This slowly reduced to being up twice a night, then once a night and now at 8 months she is sleeping through again. My daughter seemed to just wake because she was hungry and settled quickly after having some milk. I would offer some milk each time she wakes to see if that is the reason she is waking. I'm not sure there is anything you can really do to get her to sleep longer at this stage though, just ride the wave and you'll come out the other side soon.