From sleeping through the night to waking every two hours

[whatiszzz]

My baby is 16 weeks this week, 4 months end of next and is going through an extremely fussy phase and all of a sudden waking up every two hours hungry.
Before she would only wake up once in 12 hours which I j know I got extremely lucky.

Now she’s waking every two hours, but she’s also starving. Is it still okay to feed her this much throughout the night? On one wake up I tried just a dummy and cuddles to get back to sleep but this made her hysterical so fed her again.

Shes well fed in the day too so she’s taking a lot.

what’s going on and will this settle down? I’m exhausted.

Also when I try and put her down even with a feed she still wakes up.
like just now 😫

They go through growth spurts, sometimes they will want more milk than other times. If you are saying she is starving, give her more milk!

4 month sleep regression. And yes, unfortunately it’s normal. I’ve just been/still going through it.

it is also common for babies to start reverse cycling/feeding overnight during this phase.

it should settle down (hopefully). With my first, it was after this stage that we started sleep training at around 6 months.

have a look at starting some techniques to try help baby to learn to link their sleep cycles and get back over to sleep before they fully waken up howling! White noise, dummy / catching them early and shhhing/pattjng baxk to sleep etc.

ita a horrendous phase and I feel your pain right now.

4 month sleep regression

She’s never needed this much milk before. And the waking up every hour/two hours is taking me back to her early newborn days 😴
I tried patting her to sleep and it worked but as soon as I put her down she started screaming.

now she’s fully awake, fed her and she’s laying in her cot kicking about lol.

I'm in the middle of the sleep regression with you 😭😩 so hard but we've got this mumma!

Sleep regression. Stuff of nightmares. It will pass you're doing a grand job.

Yep, 4 month sleep regression. It's a total nightmare.

Are you feeding to sleep at bedtime? Things didn't start getting better for us until we broke the feed to sleep association.

yes we are - how do I stop that as she won’t go to sleep without a bottle!!

Agree with PP. for your own benefit on down the line it’s good to break the feed to sleep association. It’s hard hard work but will stand you in good stead later.
look up some sleep consultants on Instagram. Taking Cara Babies, Baby Sleep Code etc. they have helpful tips to see you through this phase and later. They have a lot just on their grids and highlights, and you can pay for the specific courses should you so wish.

The 4 month sleep regression hit us so hard at 13 weeks old, I actually think you're doing somewhat okay with 2 hourly wakeups because it was every 45 minutes for us for weeks and weeks!

This is by far the worst of the regressions because this is when sleep associations start to become a problem. Having that feed to sleep association means that when your baby wakes (or even just stirs) during the night she needs that same thing that put her to sleep at bedtime to help get her back to sleep again. She doesn't know how to put herself to sleep yet.That's why it seems like she suddenly needs so much milk, she most likely isn't starving, she's just looking for that feed to put her back to sleep again! It's a really tough time, I shudder looking back on it now but it does eventually pass OP. x

You need to break the sleep association asap. Contrary to what other posters say, I don't think it will go away on its own. Look up some gentle sleep training methods and get on with it! My baby is 4 months and sleeps 7 to 7 with one feed at 5am. I suffered with the 4 months sleep regression of his sister and made sure from relatively early that he could self settle. It look some patience but now I put him in his cot fully awake for naps and night and he might make some noise for 5 minutes and then he sleeps! Before the no-cry police makes a comment I'd like to confirm that I didn't let him cry!