Have I found the dreaded 4 month sleep regression ?

[fuzzyllama]

17 week old dd has taken to waking every two hours in the night and sometimes staying awake between 2-5 am. I am shattered. Before this started she was sleeping relatively well, sometimes sleeping through 11-7 am, but mostly waking once a night for a quick feed and back to bed.

Basically, when she wakes in the night I assume it is because she is hungry, am I right to use BF as first port of call when she wakes two hourly or is it better to try something else? She is not a self settling baby, I can count on one hand how many times she's manged it. Usually she is fed or rocked to sleep.

Sorry this is long, but please dear lord someone help me

It sounds like it. Does she feed to sleep? I would work on self settling via shh pat and only feed twice at night. Presuming she goes to bed early in the evening, I'd feed at your bedtime and not again until 3am and then not again until morning.

I'd also move to a wake - feed - activity - sleep routine to avoid the association.

When she does wake I'd settle in cot rather than getting her up.

If she is hungrier it should only last a few days

www.mybabysleepguide.com/2009/01/shhpat.html?m=1

diddly she doesn't go to bed earlier in the evening, have tried this but it doesn't work for her. She tends to feed to sleep on me at about 7/8pm and then we take her up to bed at 10/10.30 feed and put to bed.

I must admit she does have sleep association with feeding, and I do need to move to feeding first then activity etc. I just find if I don't feed to sleep she screams and screams whilst I hold and rock her until she eventually conks out. I'm making a rod for my own back aren't I ?

It's very much up to you, she will grow out of it eventually, they all do. It is only a suggestion. The feed times still work, I'd basically limit it at night time (11-7) to just one feed.

I would say to keep on trying every fortnight or so with putting her down and self settling. They all do it eventually but it helps to give the opportunity for them to do it.

I've looked at the link, thank you it was very helpful.

I'm going to try tonight if she wakes regularly to not feed each time, unless she is genuinely hungry. We have always had a bit of a tough time with her sleep, and it never seems like an easy thing for her to do. I really feel like Ive done it all wrong in regards to sleep. She spent the first ten weeks sleeping on me, I think that's perhaps where her sleeping issues stem from.

Don't beat yourself up. When they're tiny it's all about survival and any bad habits you pick up are easily fixed really as they have no real memory.

It's more important imo to have healthy habits before they are standing up, they put up more of a fight then!!