Why won't she sleep?

[LeafyLainey]

My 4mo DD just won't sleep. I think she is going through the sleep regression and it has been 2 and a half weeks now. We put her to bed between 6:30 and 7 and most night she will sleep quite nicely until around half 9/10 o'clock. Then it's every couple of hours from there, I used to be able to give her her dummy and she would go back off but now it's so much harder. She wriggles like crazy and her arms and legs are going all the time. I put her under a blanket and try to tuck it in tight but she wriggles out and wakes herself up. I've started giving her baby rice in the evenings and she has 5 bottles a day of between 180-200ml each.
Sometimes I end up giving in and she sleeps on me but I'm trying not to keep picking her up to help her back to sleep as when I was as soon as I would put her down she would wake up. She usually has her next feed after half 6 any time between 3-5am. She's not waking up hungry and will usually got till 5am before her next feed but I have been doing it slightly earlier to help her back to sleep but then after that feed she sleeps for less time before waking up again. She currently has a cold which started after all this interrupted sleep so it's not helping at all.
Im starting to struggle with the lack of sleep and I'm just wondering if anyone has any tips and tricks to help her sleep.

Thank you in advance

I've started giving her baby rice in the evenings and she has 5 bottles a day of between 180-200ml each

So you do recognise that this will, in part, be due to increased hunger. You are right, it often is around this age. I wonder why you choose to offer more difficult calories rather than just giving more milk?

Gram for gram, the most easy-to-access calories for baby is milk - formula or breast. Calorific need often goes up around the 4 month mark, and quite significantly too. How much milk baby can take in one go is limited to the size of the stomach.

The way to get more milk into baby is to offer milk feeds more frequently, so that there are more feeds per day. If these extra calories are not all given during the daytime, you will get waking in the night.

Is baby draining a 200ml bottle? That's a very large amount in one go at this age. My 91st centile chunk was given 180ml bottles at this age and usually drank between 120-150ml. But, she had 7 or 8 bottles per day. I used to feed 2 hourly through the day - 7am 9am 11am 1pm 3pm 5pm 7pm and then sometimes an 11pm feed or night feed.

Baby being hungry is not seeking to 'feel full' - it is calories baby needs. So if baby in-naturally has solids before the digestive system is ready, those few spoonfuls provide a few calories. But an extra bottle full of milk would have given baby far more calories. So there is no benefit in baby "eating" this young. Indeed, early weaning (as in 6-9 months old) often does result in unsettled nights precisely for this reason - when the calories from milk feeds reduces.

Maintain those milk feeds, increase them, They are necessary.

You could also try a baby sleeping bag instead of blankets, OP xx

Baby rice is nutritionally void. It should be banned.

My 4mo DD just won't sleep. I think she is going through the sleep regression

You answered your own question there. 😂

Doesnt she just want milk in the night?

I'm with everyone else. Bin the baby rice, give her more milk. And accept that it might not go back to how it was when she was a tiny newborn - waking up more frequently id now because sleep isn't just happening to her; there are sleep cycles and all sorts of stuff going on that means babies can jut start waking more frequently.

I ditched the baby rice today and tried offering her more feeds but she wasn't interested she's taken the same amount, if not less milk today with increased feeds as she did on her regular 5 feeds a day so I don't think it's a hunger issue. I got her weighed today and she's 15lbs 10oz in the 75th % and following that nicely since birth.
She has been in a sleeping bag but I had to ditch that as she was just kicking constantly and half rolling over and waking herself up.
I think it's more of a comfort thing rather than a hunger thing as once she has been fed in the night she doesn't go down for very long after that before she wants to get up.
Last night she went to bed at 7 with her last bottle just before, she woke up at half 8 I rocked her back to sleep. She went down till around midnight, I gave her her dummy tucked her back in and she went back off. Then she woke at around half 2ish did the same and off she went. Then at 3:45 she woke up I tried to settle but she wouldn't so I fed her she then slept till half 5 and was in and out of sleep again till 7 when we got up.
I'm just wondering if theres anything people have tried and tested that helped with the 4 month regression, how long theirs lasted and any tricks or tips to help really.

I don't think it's a hunger issue

Then she doesn't need baby rice. My only reason for suggesting more frequent feeds is because more milk feeds is far better than baby food if baby is hungry.

Trying to settle her with a dummy in the cot is far more effective for independant sleep than rocking and putting down already asleep. But doing that is often harder work and won't necessarily stop the night wakes happening any time soon.

It is also quite reasonable that baby will need one or two night feeds at this age. To expect none is unrealistic.

I do settle her with her dummy in the cot, I have stopped picking her up each time she wakes up now and it does work 9 times out of ten.

What is her daytime sleep routine?

Tbh that varies from day to day I try to get her to have 3 naps a day one after her morning feed, one after her lunch feed and then a short nap around 3 or 4. The length of the naps always varies depending on what we are doing or where she falls asleep. I'm trying to get them in a better routine but some days she will just sleep longer than others.