Help!!! 4 month old bedtime battles

[laurajaneP]

Hi everyone looking for some advice for my DD. She is our first baby and up until the last week or so she has always gone down to sleep like a dream. But some sort of switch seems to have been flipped where she fights going to sleep till the bitter end and me and my DP just don't know what to do! It has now come to having to take her out in the pram or car during the day : early evening to settle the tired grumpy crys and at bed time what was once as easy as giving her a bedtime bottle now involves a battle of wills which ends up with me rocking and singing her to sleep (this is something I have been keen to avoid getting into but have been left with no choice!) has anyone got any advice for us?? She had started drooling an awful lot and chewing on everything, could it be teething causing the issues? Thankyou in advance

The four month sleep regression is a well documented thing. So it might just be a case of grin and bear it, and get through it.

I would avoid introducing sleep ques that you come to regret though (like rocking or extended sleep procrastination). I re-introduced swaddling to help calm my DD when over tired at this age.

Also the dummy and bouncy chair are two items I consider absolutely essential to get baby sleeping well in the first 6 months. If you nail good sleep in these in the first 6 months, you should have far fewer sleep issues further down the line.

Make sure she isn't overtired too. I would expect around 60-90 minutes awake between daytime sleeps, certainly no longer than 2 hours awake.

Could feasibly be teething, it is possible. I think this is likely to be you clutching at straws though.

Ah I didn't realise that 4 month regression even existed!! She uses a dummy to settle but I'm also now wondering if the recent transition we have made from her swaddles to sleeping bag could also be the issue ( she was busting out of the swaddles and getting cold) Is there anything that can be used for slightly bigger Babies that keeps them warm aswell??

At 4 months I swaddled over the top of the sleeping bag and used a cot sheet as a swaddle. If she is in a big cot, a cot sheet width ways across the cot and tucked in tightly (over the top of baby in a sleeping bag) works well too to give that tight, secure feeling.

FATE can I ask, I often see you mention bouncy chairs, do you mean for night time sleep? Just that the dummy isnt really working that well for us as DD constantly (and I mean constantly) pulls it out (but still needs it to fall asleep), but we're too tired to try and ditch it atm, so I'm just curious about other options.

moggle the dummy has also become an issue for us aswell, she has been in a bed nest beside iur bed since birth with has been fantastic but she will soon out grow it, I need to out her dummy back in for her several times in the night so don't know how moving her to her own room is going to work out!! Fate Thankyou for the tip I will try that!!

Lol laura are you me?!! We have a bednest too and she is growing out of it and starting to kick so forcefully when she's awake it's banging against the bed and is really noisy!! And I'm having exactly the same worries about having to get up a dozen times in the night for dummy if we move her. My mum reckons she'll figure out other ways to soothe herself in time if we don't get to her quite as quickly... May be true, sometimes she sucks her thumb but at the mo I don't think we give her a chance to properly get the hang of it as we just put the dummy in. Touch wood though at the moment bedtime is ok, fairly quick but she does cry kind of half heartedly with the dummy in for a while. Our current problem is she wakes at about 3-4 am for as long as a couple of hours. It's not for food (although it was up until a few days ago)... Sometimes to play and talk to us. Last night it was to do a poo!

Ha Moggle I think I may we'll be!! Dreading putting her in her cot as she has become reliant on the dummy to sleep, daytime naps have become just as much a struggle as I type I'm sat here holding her hand as she moans and groans with tiredness but won't give in, me thinks I will once again loose the battle and go out in the pram wandering the streets!!! Knackered is an understatement!!!

moggle - The bouncy chair is for daytime sleep, not night time sleep. Once you've nailed good quality and easy sleep though, everything else falls into place.

So using a bouncy chair for regular good quality and lengthy daytime sleep, night time sleep becomes a million times easier anyway. So the bouncy chair does indeed indirectly affect night time sleep.

Having said that, it is not uncommon for me to occasionally use the bouncy chair at night too, but for a rare odd night (maybe 5 or 6 nights in total). It was especially useful for the 3 worse nights of the 4 month sleep regression and also for the odd night of struggling to breath with a blocked up nose. But as a norm, it's not used in the night.

Dummy pulling out is a phase - happens when baby discovers her hands at around 4 or 5 months old. It will pass. Swaddling helped us through this stage, keeping hands away from face (coincided with 4 month sleep regression, so helped with that too). My DD is 6 months now and passed pulling her dummy out. She still likes a tight blanket over her sleeping bag, but I think that's just her preference.

Gotcha- thanks. DD is rolling now (though hasn't twigged yet she can do it in bed!) so I'm a bit unsure about swaddling now. We've never done it except for one night with a muslin and a nappy nippa in desperation! Do have some flat cot sheets somewhere though so might try it.

Just a quick comment on teething, my DS1 got his first tooth at 19 weeks and DS2 got his first at 17 weeks, they tend to be painful for a while before they pop through as well. Basically, teething could be complicating it!

Thankyou for all your advice will try a bit of swaddling over the grobag tonight but must admit I am dreading bedtime as find myself feeling Increasingly stressed when that time comes around!! The rest of the time she is such a happy little thing so I'm hoping this sleeping things isnt going to affect that