4 month old sleep regression? HELPPPPPPPPPP!

[blackchloe]

My DD is 19 weeks old and has never slept through but was reasonably predictable, waking at 1 am and 4am for feeds but going straight back to sleep, until the last few weeks. She goes to bed well at 6pm, is dreamfed at about 10pm and then wakes at 1am for a feed but will not go back to sleep in her cot, so she ends up in bed with me.Then she wakes again at 4am but will not go back to sleep and is raring to go for the day. Anybody got any advide on how to get her to stay in her cot? I was thinking of setting my alarm for 12.45am and giving her another dreamfeed in the hope that she will then keep on sleeping. Would really like some advice. Thanks x

6pm is a really early bedtime - any reason for this? I am all for earlyish bedtimes for babies / young children, but I don't think that you can realistically expect more than a 10/11 hour night. Could you try gradually moving her bedtime back to 7, or even 7.30, in the hope that she'd sleep in a bit later? I'd also suggest having a look at her daytime sleep, and making sure she's getting enough but not too much (at this age I was aiming for 3 naps - morning / lunchtime / late afternoon of roughly 1 hour / 2 hours / 30 minutes).

Thanks for response nearlytherenow.I suppose there are 3 reasons why bed is at 6pm. Firstly I have another daughter who always had a 6pm bedtime and it was never an issue. Always 12 hour stretch , so just using the same pattern. Secondly baby seems ready for bed at 6pm. She is very grouchy from 5pm onwards. Thirdly eldest goes to bed at 7pm ( she is 5) and I cherish that hour with her for cuddling , reading , mummy time etc. So far as day times are concerned naps are fine albeit in the buggy on the school run or in my arms at home.

Oh wow, this could almost be me! My 18 week old used to settle great after a feed around 1 am. She was usually in bed around 6pm too (again, an older sibling to get to bed afterwards, and baby always gets frazzled around 5pm)
She would feed (breast feed) then settle to sleep again great. Then feed back to sleep around 6am for a little longer. Now I'm starting to reduce breast feeds and she's pretty much all bottles in the day she's started waking up more randomly for a feed. I do one big feed usually midnight ish, but then she wakes at 3am and is a nightmare to re settle.
I'm trying to stop getting her into bed and feeding her to sleep. It works, or at least it did, but I'm scared of it being a hard habit to change, especially as my milk will surely dry up soon. We have also just moved in with in laws too, after our house sale, and though I want to tackle this problem, I don't want her waking everyone up either! Do we feed them more or work on feeding them more in the day? I WANT MY SLEEP BACK!! SO frustrating that the slept better when they were younger.
They are hard work and very confusing these lovely babies.
Dream feeding never worked for us, but maybe I should try again?? She never drinks much first thing in the morning so clearly doesn't need as much milk as she's getting at night. Aghhh, nightmare.

Yes mine doesnt feed much in the morning. In fact she is a very fussy feeder generally, too busy nosing around to concentrate on her bottles. She is putting on weight but doesnt take enough in my opinion in the day to see her through the night. It is really difficult when you live in a semi ( stroppy neighbours!) and have a 5 year old that you dont want to wake to do anything but co sleep. I did read somewhere that at 4 months babies will no longer feed to sleep which is why they need to self settle which mine obviously cant do :(

Same here. Even when I leave her to get really hungry, she still can't seem to manage a 6 z bottle. I kind of let her snack. One feed a day she'll usually only have 4 oz. Nights started getting a little better after I last posted, settled her for 1st wake up, 12 ish then fed at 2nd waking at 3am. Also, no breast feeds. Helped for three nights, then woke more often and wouldn't settle without milk. Last night two night feeds between 6pm and 6am. She was wide awake then at 6am and only had 4 oz between 7am and 8am. She's also sharing a room with us, maybe I need to wheel her out and get tough!? Hope yours improves soon too.
It's a battle that's for sure. Chicken and egg syndrome. How to get more milk taken in the day and less at night if they're not hungry enough in the day and we all want sleep at night! We too have a 2.5 year old and never want him to get woken up, now that would be a nightmare.