Why is my baby waking at 4am?

[tiredsoreyes]

My DD has always been a good sleeper, she usually goes to sleep around 8pm and sleeps through until 6-7am but just recently she's been waking up at 4am and it's killing me.
She's turning 5 months old tomorrow so I don't know if it's a developmental thing but just wanted to know if anyone else has been through the same thing?
She gets around 3.5/4 hrs worth of naps during the day and she goes down for nighttime sleep around 8pm. She has her last bottle at 10:30pm.
I'm absolutely shattered today, my eyes are sore, I have a headache and with the heat I'm not sure how I'm going to get through it. I just want her to sleep through again 😢

Could she be too cold or too hot? That's a a classic time for waking due to temperature. It's usually a sign mine need to add or lose an extra layer...

Isn’t it stranger that your baby is 5 months old and slept through until now

I did check her temp and her body was warm but not too hot, maybe it is down to how warm it has been though. Our room gets really hot when the weather is like this, it has been 26 degrees in here the past 2/3 nights

When she was tiny newborn we would have to wake her to feed her through the night. Then when she gained her birth weight back we left her and she'd wake once for a feed, then since about 2/3 months old she's slept through with the odd night where she's woken and we just had to pop her dummy back in and off she went.

My son did this at regular intervals, then it would pass. Around that age what worked for us was a dream feed, so basically we shoved a bottle in his mouth while he was asleep, when we went to bed (though I see she gets fed around 10.30, that's around when we did the dream feed). Then he would sleep through.

Otherwise we just sucked it up, after about 2 weeks it passed and would recur a couple of months later.

Watch wake windows as well during the day, to make sure she is not over or under tired by bedtime.

What's she sleeping in? My baby runs really hot and is only comfortable sleeping in a nappy or vest. Absolutely hated the sleeping bag, even the really lightweight summer one. Is she waking for the day at 4am? Or is she hungry/ thirsty? My 9 month old wakes every day at around 4 for a feed then will go back down until around 8.

Ahh yes we had this at about 6 months. Literally awake and ready for the day between 4 and 5.
Check if too hot/too cold/hungry etc but for us it just improved after about 2 months.
DS is 15 months, always been a great 7-7 sleeper but we did have some of these blips.

@rickandmorts she was in just a short sleeve babygrow last night. She seemed like she was wide awake, I rocked her and it didn't work, left her to see if she'd go off by herself but she still lay there making squealing sounds 😂 so I put her in the bed with us and she went off nearly straight away!!!

Oh bless her. We cosleep anyway but those in my NCT group who put them down in a cot bring them in bed in the early hours anyway. So you might have to do that so you all get some sleep?

@AussieManque out of interest, did you make sure the dream feed was so many hours after the last one? Or irrelevant of last feed, baby got a bottle when you went to bed?

DS used to do that. Nothing helped except going to bed earlier and accepting it wasn't forever tbh. That's still really good sleep for a baby that age!

That's really good sleep for a baby to be honest. In my experience not much makes any difference and you just have to accept it. It'll pass. I bring mine in to bed with me if they wake super early and they sometimes drift back off.

My baby is 6 months and wakes around the same time every morning. I bring him into bed with me and he drifts off until half 6 ish. I don't know why he does it, he's not cold, but it's been going on for months now. Since he was about 8 weeks I think.

Mine also wakes 3-4 times a night in addition to this but that's by the by! Can't help but feel jealous of mamas with babies that sleep 😂

You could try trimming the naps – four hours is on the high end – but with most things baby sleep they grow out of one phase and start doing something else irritating. DS has just moved on from his 5am cannonball poo habit and decided to split his nights instead, lovely.

8-6 is really good for 5 months. It would be much more common for them to wake at least once in that time for a feed.

Is she feeding then going back to sleep at that time?

The feed she has at 10:30pm is around 4 hours after her last feed she has at around 6/6:30pm. Sometimes if she doesn't have much at 6 we will offer her another bottle a couple of hours later and then another before bed, we always offer 210ml around 10 when we go up to bed regardless of when her last feed was.
I haven't tried offering her a bottle at 4 yet because she isn't making her usual hungry sounds, it's more her making squealing sounds and it's like she's practicing using her voice, doesn't sound distressed or uncomfortable at all. She does them throughout the day too and they are very sweet sounds but at 4am it's hard to find them cute 😅 she has been going back off to sleep after either popping her dummy in and letting her go off by herself or putting her in the bed with us.

So your baby has slept through virtually since birth, and now wakes once at 4am but will go straight back to sleep if you pop in a dummy or bring her into bed with you?

And this is killing you??

Honestly as someone whose baby would only sleep on their chest and then woke every 40 minutes for months on end, I don’t think you have a problem.

I'm sorry you had to go through that but please, if you have nothing helpful to say just don't even bother commenting at all. Every mother has different experiences with their babies and we are all on our own journeys. What affects me may not affect you in the same way and vice versa, who the hell are you to judge me?

I'd be pleased with that tbh! Thing is you've got used to a full night's sleep and sleep development isn't linear so you're going to have periods when you have to get up the night. Hopefully it'll stop soon and until then there's always caffeine!

While I do agree that when you've got a bad sleeper it's hard not to feel envious and bitter, and in comparison OP does have it easier, when you've got used to sleeping a full night and then suddenly you're not, it can make a difference to how knackered you feel. You get used to sleep deprivation when it's day in, day out.

Although I must admit I did have similar thoughts when I opened the thread 😫

My DD is 20mo and still woke up twice last night. She's slept through perhaps twice in her life! You are very lucky.

Everything is a phase with babies. They are changing constantly. When they start teething their sleeping can often deteriorate terribly.

I think you might have to adjust your expectations to be honest. I thought you meant she was up for the day at 4 but if she goes back to sleep I can't see the issue,that's what babies do. Lots of babies need feeding a couple of times in the night at 5 months AND won't settle, in fact that's pretty normal. She's having huge chunks of sleep, can't you put your feet up while she's napping in the day if you're tired or go to be earlier? It's probably nothing you can do to 'fix' it, I think you've just been extremely fortunate so far.

Dd2 is 5 months and woke up last night at 4.30. She normally sleeps through from 10pm until 8am. It was the weather I think. I didn’t put her in her sleeping bag like normal as it was so warm so when the temp dropped at 4 she woke up.

Also between 8am and 10pm yesterday she had a max of 1hours nap despite my trying to get her to sleep. I think it’s a growth spurt too.

I can't remember to be honest, I think we tried to leave the dream feed as late as possible, basically when we were ready to turn out the lights. He seemed to always chug it down in his sleep.

Sounds like 4 month sleep regression, where they transition from newborn sleep cycles to the kind of sleep cycles we have as adults.

It will pass. And you get used to it. We're going through it at the moment. First week was brutal but feeling fine in the days now.

Good luck OP!