Routine for 20 week old?

[iloveberries]

Hi, looking for a routine for my 20 week / 4.5 month old. We haven't done a routine up until now and have been very baby led. Consequently we have no adult time as he doesn't properly go to sleep till around 10pm. We started doing a bedtime routine and he willl go down at 7:30 but wakes every 20mins till around 10pm and has tonne fed back to sleep. He's usually awake 4 times in the night - with two feeds.

He's breastfed with a couple of bottles of formula in evening as I didn't feel I was making enough milk for him

DS1 was Gina Forded and I wish I'd started earlier with this one.

Please can someone help me get back on track as am thoroughly exhausted and constantly tearful.

All the routines I look at say "start with a full feed" but he never wants to feed first thing. Last night he fed at 4:30am and won't feed yet this morning apart from a 2min suck. If I try and leave him at 4:30 he cries and cries.

Thinking of hiring sleep consultant but feel frustrated that I can't crack it myself 😢😢

"start with a full feed"

I assume you mean EASY (Eat Awake/happy Sleep You time) cycles. You can just change these to AESY if that suits you better.

The whole point of EASY is that it is a baby led routine. The idea is that you follow a repeated cycle of events. If you prefer making it Awake - Feed - Sleep

The basics are

• limit awake time
• regular, frequent naps
• regular, frequent feeds

So, for example:

• Baby wakes. Look at clock. Make a mental note to start a feed at most 1h from waking
• Awake time - play, do something, go somewhere. For an hour or before if tired/hunger signs. The idea being that along with the feed, baby is awake for about 80 minutes at most.
• Feed
• Sleep

Baby wakes and you start again and keep repeating the cycle.

The benefits for feeding on waking from a nap are:

• you are not developing a going to sleep/milk link
• you can be certain that any grumpiness during awake time is due to tiredness, not hunger
• it helps you better notice the difference between being hungry and being tired, the two can be easily confused if they often come together.

Thank you for taking the time to reply.
Often when I put baby down for bed he wakes and screams on and off for the next 2-3hours and needs constant settling. He isn't hungry. Any thoughts what this could be? At the moment it stops us having any sort of evening.

Then through the night he wakes every 1-3 hours. I will feed if he won't settle with a dummy and a pat but the constant waking is still hard.

He's only a young baby I know but I need bigger blocks of sleep than one hour 😞

Hes probably looking for cluster feeding in the evening.

It's recommended baby sleeps in the same room you are at all times, until 6 months. This SIDS recommendation and the normal unsettled evenings is why many people keep baby with them invite evening - intermittently feeding and sleeping, until you go to bed.

Hi Iloveberries

I am sorry that I'm not on here to offer much advice but instead to sympathise with you. I have exactly the same issue. Baby is tired at 7/8pm so we do the bedtime routine and put him down. He sleeps for about half an hour/ up to an hour then wakes every 20/30 minutes and needs settled. He also wakes every 1-3 hours to feed during the night. I am at my whits end and don't know where to turn to next. I'd be interested to read the responses you receive. Why did you not to Gina Ford with this one? I am thinking about getting the book to see if I can start some kind of routine,

I also breastfeed, topping up with formula in the evening. One night recently he took the whole 200ml but then still woke at the normal times during the night. I think we are going to try to limit the nighttime feeds to 2 and just let him cry the rest of the time. It's going to be very hard initially but I'm hoping it'll be worth it in the long run.

We use a dummy to soothe and I'm worried that he wakes when it falls out and can't put himself back to sleep so I'm also thinking about slowly taking the dummy away at night time.

Wishing you luck with getting more sleep.

I really sympathies. My ds was not a fan of sleep and at the time I didn't think I'd get through it. But it really is a very short time. 4 months is tiny. Have you seen wonder weeks? Sleep regressions are often part of a leap when they are learning a new skill. Cry it out isn't recommended until a minimum of six months - their tummies are tiny, they need milk and they need cuddles as its good for bonding. I found the path of least resistance made both me and ds happier. Good luck

My son is 5 months and he hasn't once slept more than about 3 hours!