4 month old waking very hungry at night !

[EmmaCx]

Hi, my 4+ month old baby boy is a very happy healthy baby boy, loves his milk and also recently his solids! He is finishing his 7/80Z bottles, and would have one about 7:45pm before I put him down at 8pm after his routine bath every night. He then would wake at 1/2 which is brilliant but then again at 4 and 6/7. I’ve tried to settle him without bottle at these times as I’m worried it’s habit to expect the bottle, but he really cries and I can hear his tummy rumbling quite a bit! He falls asleep and doesn’t finish bottles but when I set him back in he starts crying again, I’ve set him in with me which seems to settle him but don’t want to start that now! Wondering if the miliupa bedtime banana/ porridge would help before bed with a bottle? I am aware of the 4 month sleep regression too☹️ Any advice on getting baby to sleep through night is greatly appreciated! 😊 xx

Waking only twice a night at 4 months is fantastic. Just keep feeding him when he wakes. They really do still need to eat round the clock at this age. He doesn’t need food, just milk. Actually I’ve found introducing solids usually leads to worse sleep rather than better for the first month or so as it’s quite a shock to tummies that aren’t used to food.

He is 4 months old so he is suppose to have milk over night. If he is finishing his bottles then you need to offer more milk. Babies should be deciding when it’s time to stop dropping milk.

If he’s finishing his bottles during the day, give him more regular bottles if he’ll take them. Prioritise this over food which will not fill him up at this age and can make them sleep worse to begin with. It may be he is not able to take all the milk he needs during the day though so will continue waking for a bit. It’s not long in the grand scheme of things though

What do you do at night if you wake up and you're hungry? Do you eat something or tell yourself it's a terrible habit you need to get out of? Just give him a feed at night.

You could try a dream feed when you go to bed at 11ish? A big bottle might see him through and or at least give you a chunk of sleep. But really at this age you just need to feed on demand, there is no magic formula and he's still so very young. Also solids aren't recommended this early unless under direct paediatric advice.

4 months is still so young. If he's hungry just feed him. Babies tummies are so tiny they get empty bellies a lot quicker than we do.

Just feed him when he wants milk and he will in his own time drop bottles over night.
I wouldn't worry about it. He's literally being a normal baby waking for feeds at night.

Also baby rice has no nutritional value to babies and really doesn't make a difference.

I had to wean early at 5 months due to medical reasons and my LO wasn't ready at all. I wish I had waited until 6 months as their tummies are so sensitive. Just give him milk when he's hungry. I know it's hard but he's literally just being a baby.

He might drop a bottle or he may not. But if he wakes hungry just feed him, don't try and settle him without milk as he will just wake up shortly after even more hungry and frustrated.

Mine were still feeding every two hours at that age.

Thanks everyone for the advice, I will defo take it onboard :) I had heard my friends babies at this age were sleeping right through the night and I guess I expected my baby to do that also which was unfair, as all babies are different. Xx

@Megan2018 omg I’m not not feeding him!! Everyone was telling me their baby is sleeping right through the night and mine should be too at this age!! I have been giving him the bottle when he needs it without hesitation but was wanting advice in case he was waking due to something else as he isn’t even finishing the bottles/if even taking any of it! If you can’t say something nice don’t bother saying it at all! Its sad when you can’t even ask for advice on a mums forum without receiving ignorant comments

Don’t worry. The one thing you can be sure of is that when a lot of people say their babies are sleeping through the night they are either exaggerating, or have quite different interpretations of through the night!

Accepting that its perfectly normal is the only real answer tbh. It'll pass, just like all the hard phases do.

How many bottles is he having during the day?

I would def give him atleast one in the night.

What time do you go to bed?
Could u give him one about midnight

That way will hopefully go through to 6am ish

Best bit of advice is not to listen to anyone else when they tell you how much their baby is sleeping.

It sounds like he’s doing well, just feed on demand and drop the solids- if you’re in the UK weaning really isn’t advised much before six months unless on medical advice. He just needs milk. Waking once or twice a night at this age is fantastic.

I seem to remember at that age giving a dream feed. So we'd bottle feed at 11 while he was asleep and that would get us through to 5ish. Then we sleep stretched to get through to the morning around 6 or 7 months. I don't think we dropped the dream feed until 12 months and it worked really well.

OP, most children don't sleep through until will into toddlerhood, sometimes beyond.

Some do sleep well in the first few months but often that doesn't last (obviously sometimes it does).

It sounds like your baby is sleeping very very well for their age.

Thanks all for reassuring me, @WaterIsBest he would have 5-6 7ounce bottles a day (every 3-4 hours). I put baby to bed at 8 and then I would go up to bed about 10, I think I will give a dream feed like @Si1ver suggests, however I tried this once before and he wouldn’t suck the bottle as he was fast asleep lol. I’ll try again and see if this can get him through, last night was a tough night as he woke at 12, 1:30, 2:45, 4:30 and 6.00. I think I will drop the solids as suggested as this could be the cause, or else teething as he always has his wee hands in his mouth and his clothes are soaked with dribble lol. I only was giving him a small amount of very puréed baby porridge at lunch time with his bottle but think I will now leave this out. Xx

Do you mean you’ve put porridge in your infants bottle? Please do not ever do this 😱 if anyone told you to do this, you can safely disregard absolutely everything that they say on any subject forevermore.

Perfectly normal for your infant to wake up multiple times, could well be in pain from being weaned (given anything other than milk) far too soon, could be teething, could be anything, but yeah, babies feed often. Nothing needs fixed about that.

(That last bit sounded snippy, I meant nothing needs fixed, it’s fine, don’t worry)

You shouldn't be giving baby food yet unless advised by a professional. Early weaning can cause problems. Your baby is four months old, feed the baby when it is hungry.

@NowEvenBetter no no I have never put anything other than milk in his bottle, I meant after his lunch time bottle I was giving him like 2 baby spoonfuls of very puréed porridge which he loved and wouldn’t even let go of the spoon and actually cried for more, however I am going to just stop this until he is 6 months x

Firstly, don’t believe other parents telling you their babies sleep through the night. Not only do people exaggerate, they also have different definitions of “sleeping through the night”. I always thought it meant 7pm to 7am with no wakings. Turns out one friend meant 11pm to 5am (because that’s a reasonable bedtime and reasonable waking up time!) and for another friend it meant “other than for a quick feed a couple of time, of course”. So, yeah, whatever. Also, you have your baby and they have theirs. Literally no two human beings are alike, so just ignore it.

Secondly, the 4 month sleep regression is REAL. Just ride it out. Could be a few days, could be a few weeks. The baby just wants YOU. And don’t worry about creating a rod for your own back, putting him in bed with you. That ship sailed the day he was born - having kids IS the rod

Thirdly, and I would have slaughtered anyone who said this to me when mine were babies, just give in and snuggle him. I know you’re exhausted and it’s full on and non-stop and all day long and you’ve no time for anything else etc etc. But it really is true that these baby months fly by. When he’s 12 and his trainers are the size of boats and he stinks and farts and leaves a trail of toast crumbs everywhere he goes, you’ll look back in these baby months when you had him in your bed and happily slept peacefully together. They’re precious times. Wish I could have them back

Just feed him if he's hungry, sounds like he's doing really well

BeenThruMoreThanALilBit

Thank you for the good laugh, that last bit predicting my bright future!

@BeenThruMoreThanALilBit it’s so true that the baby period flies in so quick! Thanks for the fab advice, I love hearing from mums with experience as this is my first and sometimes I really struggle on knowing what to do! Xx