Is 4 months too early to start sleep training and how?

[Wendywoo2617]

My LO has recently turned 4 months, she usually has her last bottle between 10:30-11:30pm and will go down for the night and wakes up around 7-8am and would usually take a bottle and happily go down for another few hours if I let her. Then came the 4 month sleep regression where she started stirring in the middle of the night and most recently she's caught a cold/bronchitis which has totally threw her routine out of the window.

I've been reading a lot people tend to do bed and bath between 6-8pm and their baby usually sleeps through to morning. I've started giving her a bath and bottle around 7pm but she will only go down for 45mins and would usually require another 2 bottles before going down for the night which takes us back to her original bedtime. She is still recovering from a terrible cough which probably doesn't help.

How can I start introducing an earlier sleep time? What's the trick!?

Try full feed bottles every 2 hours through the daytime. This sounds hunger related. More calories through the daytime means fewer needed at night. If you can get 7 or 8 full feeds into her through the daytime, you can be better certain she isn't hungry at night.

Thanks, will give that a try hopefully it will do the trick.

You could also start bringing her original bedtime forward maybe 20 min at the time?Maybe going from a very late bedtime to a very early one doesn't work for her and maybe she thinks that she is only going down for a nap.

Ds didn't settle into a proper bedtime til about 6 months.

I don't think many 4 month old are 'sleepingbthrough'

Thanks for your messages, so the LO knows that after bath an bottle is bed and will go down relatively easy,

I've tried feeding her more during the day so she's fuller, but recently she's been waking up between 1-2am so I've given her a feed and she goes back down as I tried settling her without good but she won't settle down.

I just hope she doesn't think 1am is feeding time. Should I move her bedtime to slightly later so she goes down for longer/hopefully sleep through?

It's pretty typical for a 4 month old to need feeds in the night so you may have a hard time convincing her that 1am isn't feeding time!

DS went from sleeping 11-7 to needing anything from 2-4 nightfeeds with the 4 month sleep regression and only now at 7 months does he appear to be stabilising at 2 nightfeeds (around 11pm and 3am). He did, however, naturally bring forward his own bedtime between 4 and 5 months until he was going to sleep between 6:30 and 7pm. The clue was he just got grouchier and grouchier! I found the night waking so much easier to cope with after having the evening to myself.

Yes.
One wake up a night is good going at that age.

I did it at 4 months but I'll probably get flamed for saying that. It was gentle, just bedtime routine, put down awake, bit of shush pat which progressed to pick up put down (love the Baby Whisperer!). Dream feed. And we didn't bring her out of the bedroom once she had gone to bed.

I should stress though that this worked for DD who was independent from the get go. DS was cuddly and didn't sleep through until 11 months, though we still did dream feed, put down awake etc.

It's still quite early days to expect your baby to sleep 12 hours and it sounds like because you've dropped the 10pm feed she is now waking at 1 instead. You can persevere with the earlier bedtime and eventually the time will extend if you try resettling without a feed when she wakes. Regardless though I would keep the 10pm feed for now and if she is asleep make it a dream/sleepy feed. She is obviously not ready to drop it and keeping it at 10pm will mean she doesn't get into the habit of waking in the middle of the night.

I just hope she doesn't think 1am is feeding time

I am IS feeding time.

If you were not expecting a night feed, the only thing wrong are your expectations I am afraid.

1am is feed time though, many many babies will need a night feed until they are 1.

@FateDestiny my LO hasn't needed a night feed since 6weeks old and has been sleeping through from then. in response to your reply it is not based on my expectations but on my LO feeding pattern.

Thanks for all the other suggestions will try the 10pm feed as well.

Sleep development is not linear.

The unrealistic expectations were that you assumed the older baby gets, the more he sleeps. This is incorrect. Night feeds can be dropped and reintroduced several times.

4 months is way too early to sleep train. It's perfectly normal for a baby to want a feed in the night! Also with being poorly it can take weeks or months to get back into a routine again, especially when you throw in sleep regressions. It's not 'normal' for a 4mo to sleep through the night. Those that do are the exception rather than the norm.