Four month sleep regression

[CrowOnTheBroom]

I think my ds is going through this at the moment. Previously he'd go down around 6:30pm, sleep til 10 and then wake a couple of times for a feed. Now I'm lucky if he'll go down at all, and he wakes every hour or two throughout the night.
He's bottle fed and I do feed him to sleep a lot of the time because it's a quick way to get him back to sleep. I've also been thinking about sleep training.
My question is this though - I've seen conflicting advice on here about the regression - is it too early to sleep train and should I carry on feeding to sleep to Just get through this hell? Or is he learning new sleep habits now which should include self settling??

My little one hit the 4 month regression pretty hard! We just rode it out as I'm off work still, and now at 6 1/2 months he's much better again 😊

I don't believe in sleep regressions. They're sleep progressions! It's much nicer to think of it like that.

I think at 4 months you are just trying different thing so to see if anything works rather than sleep training. I wouldn't really sleep train till their awareness takes a leap at about 7 months.

We are going through this too and have been for a while - DS us 5.5 months now. It is slowly improving although still having regular wake ups. I think up to 6 months sleep training is not advised. I'd ride it out for now and see what the next couple of months bring. If your lo is hungry then perhaps it's a growth spurt and will settle down.

Why not give a dummy instead of feeding to sleep?

Self settling is a biological thing that happens much much later. It’s best to ride it out, but you could try a dummy as above.

As a pp has said, you shouldn’t sleep train before 6 months (if at all).

A Sleepyhead really helped settle my DS during the regression- though we then had to wean him off it, which created more issues...

Hi Fatedestiny! I've been reading your sleep advice on other threads, hope you're feeling better.
He does have a dummy but seems to prefer a bottle to settle with, even a few sucks are more successful at calming him than giving the dummy.

Please please can someone offer me more advice because he was up every hour again last night and I feel like I'm having a breakdown through lack of sleep :-(

CrowOnTheBroom so sorry, it’s really tough. I can honestly say it will get better soon. What time is he going down at bedtime? Can you get a few hours sleep early evening say from 8pm? If baby isn’t in bed at this time can your partner hold him so you can get a good chunk of sleep? Also nap whenever he naps at this stage x

Too early to sleep train. At this age we have a feed when we went to bed (11ish) then didn’t feed again until the morning. Wake ups were dealt with by having baby in sleepyhead in co sleeper, dummy and my hand on his tummy, rubbing/patting, plus white noise. At least this way I didn’t have to get out of bed, which made it all the more tolerable for me. I looked at how I wanted my baby to sleep (in their own space, without numerous feeds overnight and without needing me to settle them eventually) and tried to emulate as many of those factors as possible. It’s an exhausting time though!

Hi Crow, I replied to your PM but not sure if you saw? I have some more thoughts for you if that's useful.

Thank you all - Rebecca thanks for the PM, I think it's still a bit early to try training, I'm going to wait until 6 months I think. Was your lo younger when you did it? I'm thinking I might also invest in a sleepyhead. Bit of an extra expense this close to Xmas but I'm prepared to try anything!

What us his daytime routine like, in terms of feeding and napping?

Sorry for the delay, a typical day is this:
6:30-7am wake and feed (though if he fed at 5am he might not take much)
9am nap on school run, anything from 30 mins to 2 hours
11am (approx) feed
Second nap 1.5-2 hours after waking from first nap, usually around midday.
2pm (approx, depending on nap) feed
3pm - final nap on school run, could be an hour, could be 20 mins.
4:30pm feed
6pm bath
6:30pm bath, feed, bed

I think baby is over tired. I'd say reduce awake time between naps, so there are more naod per day.

For example I'd aim for 2 or 3 naps (depending on their length) in the school day. Plus one around teat time.abd knew before the school run. At 4 month old I'd be working on an awake time of 45-75m awake time between naps. The absolute maximum and only if the preceeding nap was 90m plus would be 90 minutes, yet you seem to be giving regular 2h awake times.

An example would be:
● 6.30-7am wake
● 8am nap (woken for school run, if not already awake)
● 9am school run (awake)
● 9.30am nap, once home from school.
● Late morning nap. Say 11.30am (timing depends on length of morning nap)
● Afternoon nap. Say 2pm (timing depends on previous naps. Woken for school run)
● 3pm school run (awake)
● 4pm nap (when home from school run)
● 7pm bed

As for feeds, it depends on your child. Mine were big babies, 91st centile. I gave gull feeds every 2h through the daytime, so that less was needed at night.

Thanks Fate, I appreciate your advice. I'll need to work on the naps though as currently he'll only nap in the buggy or car seat rather than his cot. From what you've said I need to reverse what I do now. I think he's only napped in his cot about twice so that's going to need work.

My son went through this about this time last year. It was horrendous for about a month - we’d got through it by new year I remember. He went in his own room over Christmas and it made a world of difference.

We went for dummy, comforter, covering him up well as it was cold. We never offered feeds as he’d not had one at night for ages at that point.

He slept 12 hours from 9 months so we got there eventually!