Sleep for a 4 month old

[MargorieJean]

My DD has just turned 4 months old. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment with ‘advice’ from all directions and have no clue what I’m doing wrong or how to fix it, or if what we’re doing is normal.
She gets up around half 8. She tends to have 3 naps a day - the longest is late morning/midday and can sometimes last 1.5 or 2 hours. Then another nap around 3/4pm for about 45 mins and then one in the evening for about an hour. This is where I’m stuck because if I try to treat the evening nap as bedtime, she inevitably is wide awake again around 11 when I’m trying to head to bed. So at the moment she has her evening nap in the pram or as a contact nap, and her bedtime in her next to me crib is when I’m going to bed at 11. Safe sleep guidance says I must be in the room with her for all sleep, which I am, but then all the advice online and in books and even anecdotally from friends and family says baby bedtime should be around 7 or 8pm?! So I’m not sure what to do, and I’m worried that I’m setting her up for some really bad habits when she’s older and in her own room etc. I should add we live in a small cottage with just 1 floor so I can easily hear her and check on her if she’s in another room and I have a video monitor but I’m still dubious about just leaving her asleep. Any advice would be appreciated.

Does it work for you and your baby? If so, it's all good. The best advice I ever had was not to change anything for the sake of it. It sounds like you have a nice routine going.

@mynameiscalypso To a certain extent it works but I also would like to get my evenings back to myself a little bit eventually and I’m worried that her bedtime will always be 11pm unless I do something about it, but what that something is I don’t know. I don’t even know if she’s been through the 4 month regression yet as she went through a period a couple of weeks ago of being very difficult to get to nap during the day and having short naps, which my HV said sounded like a regression. She still wakes for a bottle around 3am which I don’t mind as she goes back to sleep after it, but it’s the evening/bedtime thing I worry I’ve got all wrong. My DH works shifts and often isn’t here in the evenings which is how her bedtime has stayed so late I guess, so he can see her when he gets home but I just hear of all these other parents with babies who easily go to bed early and wonder if I’m doing her harm or what I’m doing wrong

You're not doing anything wrong at all! My DS certainly went to bed at a similar time when he was 4 months. At about 6 months, it crept forward to 9pm and then went to 7pm from about 10 months and has stayed that way ever since. Once they start dropping or consolidating naps then it becomes a bit easier. I generally always rather have an easy life then try to force my baby into a routine that doesn't work for them.

That’s reassuring to hear, thank you for sharing your experience. It does work well as barring a couple of times where she’s been unsettled at night she’s generally good at going longer stretches at night and that’s the main thing that’s more important to me than evenings.

I used to like the late wake ups at that stage too. Once my DS started going to bed earlier, everything shifted and the mornings started way too early for my lkkkng!

*liking

Yes I enjoy the lie in too especially if I’ve had to get up during the night to prepare a bottle and do a feed. Aware it won’t last forever as I do have friends with older children who get up at like 6am regardless of their bedtime! I just never thought I would be a parent who would worry overly about things like sleep, I suspect it’s the pressure from elsewhere. My Instagram and Facebook feeds are inundated with posts and ads about “sleep training” and “routines” and it just keeps making me anxious

I'd give it a bit longer, make sure any 4 month regression crap is done then see what you've got to work with.

My second was such a sleeper but at 4 months refused to cut down from about 5 naps and was going to bed at like 12/1am, it was crap but he slept solidly and it didn't latest that long and a 7-9pm bedtime became more typical not long after.

My 6mo is usually asleep by 7.30, I dream feed at 10 and then she's usually up a couple of times. This week she's been up for the day at 5am which I am not happy about but she will not go back to sleep!

Oh another thing I read somewhere online earlier was that if you don’t sort sleep routines by the time the 4 month regression has ended, you’ll never sort them. Things like self soothing etc - my DD still needs me to pat/shush her to sleep especially at night and I just felt when I read that that I’m doomed to having to do it for good.

Yeah I worry too about the 4 month regression being the “be all and end all” for sleep. But it’s reassuring to hear from others on here that there’s still so much variety in patterns at this age.

@Melisande90 I fed my first to sleep for ages (years) I'm not still doing it, other people could get her to sleep without it, if I played dead she'd go to sleep with out it and for a brief weird patch I could pat her to sleep. She is one of the least flexible child in the world (probably autistic) but even she isn't stuck with whatever we were doing at 4 months.

That is suck a weird myth that only serves to freak parents out and into buying into someone's sleep training book or program

I would say get up earlier - 7am then 2 naps late morning & 2hrs at lunch then earlier bedtime. Dream feed 10pm.

My baby has slept through for a long time now (6mo) and is usually asleep for 7.30pm and up at 5/5.30am. Once asleep for bed, baby goes upstairs in the Next to Me with the monitor on. Baby doesn't have any feeds in the night but once awake, that's it and there is no going back to sleep. We never had a sleep regression at 4months and I am aware I'm very lucky as my first baby didn't sleep anywhere near as well as this, but did sleep in a lot later so I could catch up on broken sleep a bit.

Before the 7.30pm sleep, baby was always going to sleep quite late and I think that's normal. Only difficulty is when you're knackered and want to sleep but baby isn't ready!

Our naps are done all over the place! Sometimes in the Next to Me, sometimes on me, sometimes in the pram or car. We don't stick to a strict schedule though as baby has to fit in around my other DC so baby sleeps when tired, not at an allocated time.

Don't worry about late bedtime now as it's likely to resolve itself gradually to an earlier time. The worst bit is when they decide randomly that 10/20 minutes naps are adequate- not a fun phase 😬

Played dead 😂 I know exactly what you mean

Thanks all, I feel more reassured from reading all your posts. I do agree with a pp about maybe trying an earlier wake time to see if that makes any difference, this week was injections week so she’s not in terrific form but will maybe try it once she’s back to her normal happy self