How many wake-ups?

[ShutterHaze]

I’m a FTM to a 4 MO. I would love to know how many wake-ups you have from your 4 MO a night (or had at that age if they are now older) and how you get/got them back to sleep.

Mine currently sleeps from around 8/8.15pm until around 6/6.20am. She is held/rocked/patted/shushed to sleep (before being put down in her crib) and usually has two or three wake-ups a night at around 10.30pm (not always), 2am and 4am. I (breast)feed her to sleep for each wake up, unless it’s before midnight or after the 4am wake up. We follow appropriate wake windows. I think we have already emerged from the 4 month sleep regression…

Whilst I am able to get her to sleep fairly quickly (albeit with some tears), I would love to be able to put her down awake after her bedtime routine and for her to fall asleep independently. Any tips on that welcome! I do not want to use CIO/CC (although acknowledge there will likely be some crying involved).

Hi, I am also a FTM to a 4 month old. She tends to go to sleep around 8/9 and then wake at 6. Wake ups last night were at 11 due to wind and 3 am for a bottle. She then woke at 6:45 which was a treat!

My little girl is also either rocked or fed to sleep so the same as you. we occasionally have had 9-5 straight though by are in the midst of the regression at the moment.

Wow those are some good stretches! I’m praying for some better stretches, and later starts, soon…

DC1 none. DC2 1 wake up which was a quick dummy replace in the early hours (no feeds). They were both ok with going down drowsy but awake though and would suck their thumb (DC1) or dummy (DC2) to put themselves to sleep.

That’s brilliant! Really seems like self-settling is important.

We find that there’s no consistency through - some nights it’s more but ours seems to be more related to DD’s reflux. Sometimes she wakes at 5 and will only slee lap longer if she’s in the bed with me so very up and down.

My little one is 4 months next week, ebf. He generally sleeps on me (after a feed) 9.30-10.30pm before going in his snuzpod until about 7am.

We went through a few weeks where he would only wake around 4am for a feed, but for the last week or so he now also wakes around 1/1.30am for a feed too. Then awake at 7 and fed again when we start our day! So wakes roughly every 3 hours. Think we could be going through the sleep regression too, but also not sure if the heat is making him more thirsty?!

he’s also recently found his thumb which is a godsend for self soothing when he isn’t hungry!

That sounds really good! Mine has also found her thumb recently. We still swaddle her at night, but I’m wondering whether to start trying to transition out of it for that reason… We had one night without the swaddle though and it didn’t go very well!

Child 1: bed about 8, dream feed at 11, wake up about 3, sometimes 6, and usually back to sleep ubtil 8, but sometimes up for the day. 6 years old now, does not sleep through.

Child 2: up and down like a yoyo. At 4m, probably awake every 2-3hrs, but this got worse at 6m, where it was 30-90m, with chunks of awake time of 1-3 hours in the middle of the night. This continued ubtil 18m, when she'd start only waking 2-3 times, with some sleeping through from 2. 4 now, does not sleep through.

I live on fumes 😂

DS1 was waking up every two hours at 4 months. He continued that pattern until about 9 months (sometimes it was every 45 minutes, two hours was the max). I always breastfed him back to sleep.

I taught him to self settle for day time naps at about 4ish months by just puting him down in his cot. I had a 20 minute limit and wouldn't leave him to cry after that but would just feed to sleep. He picked it up pretty quickly so he would self settle when put down but would still wake up every cycle...

At 9 months (when going back to work was looking) I decided to wait a bit in the night/ letting him cry (or try and self settle) before picking him up and feeding him. I told myself I'd wait 20 minutes but at least 5 minutes (my willpower went down as the night progressed)

Within two nights he was only waking up twice which was a huge improvement and then.by a year it was occasionally through the night (with the occasional 3am wake up)

Up to 4 months, twice a night. From 4 months onwards for 3 months, up every 45 mins. It's got gradually better since the end of that horrid phase with blips for illness etc. Has now slept through the night consistently since about 16 months (7-6/6.30). Their sleep will be up and down for years, try to just accept it is what it is a ride through it.

4 MO
FF
Sleeps 8-9pm
Wakes 5-6am
Night feeds 12am and 3am

Some strong fumes as well I imagine!! I hadn’t even thought of the challenges of TWO children waking up in the night!!

It sounds like self-settling really makes all the difference!

I think this is a really good point - I forget that everything - even the good bits - is just a phase!

I'm sorry, but are you really saying you left a 4 month old to cry for 20 minutes in their cot? Because I'm desperately hoping that I've misunderstood

Well it depends, leaving him a little at night to try and go back to sleep himself made a huge difference.

Him going for a nap in the day himself didn't seem to make any difference at night but it made me feel like he had the skill to get to sleep himself so maybe helped!

Currently pregnant with number 2 and definitely going to try to jump less at every cry and give them a chance to self settle for a few minutes

Nope, that's exactly what I did. Wish I'd done it sooner, jumping at every cry wasn't working for me and he went to sleep quickly so clearly didn't need anything

I’d always give a cry a few minutes too to see if it escalated or subsided. You quite quickly learn to hear the difference between that sort of whingy grizzling they do when falling to sleep where it’s better to leave them and the proper upset really need something sort of cry.

My Dd is 8 months old now. But from 12 weeks slept through the night, down at 7, awake at 7. We taught her self soothing techniques from 10ish weeks. Put her down awake, I would keep her awake on the boob and then keep her up right for 20 minutes after her feed (reflux) then put her down awake and with her swaddled and hand on her tummy I would shush her to sleep. Then eventually I was able to just shush her to sleep, then after a little while I stopped shushing and she would settle herself. And once we had a good baby monitor I put her down and left her, she would and still does out herself to sleep.
I would say it's the self settling that is the key, I generally didn't feed to sleep so she didn't associate feeding with sleeping. And I had a pretty rigid nighttime routine.
But I will say I was just blessed with a super good sleeper, some babies just don't know how to self soothe until they are older. But there's no harm in trying to teach them now.

@Ged94 he needed a mother's love and affection. But he learned not to expect it to come. 20 minutes is an incredibly long time for a 4 month old.