Help please 4 month old!

[Min88]

Hello. Right need some advice from other mummies who have pretty much held, worn or bed shared with baby since birth! This was led by my DD as she wanted frequent breastfeeds and has an aversion to falling asleep in car and buggy!

However now I'm feeling that at 4 months it would be a good idea to give her the opportunity to sleep not in my arms and try and get her sleeping more independently....any tried and tested methods with this? She is in a nap and bedtime routine atm and I can feed her to sleep and move away, however she will only
Stay asleep for 40 mins max. She also seems to sense being put down, even when in deep sleep! I am bed sharing with her in her room now so she is used to it however want to transition to cot (fixed sides!).

Thank you in advance!



DD is still in our room at 12 months so I'm maybe not the best person to advise you but until she was about 5 months old (coincidentally also when I stopped BF) we took one side off her cot and pushed it up against our bed so that I could just slide her away from me (in her baby nest which helped) into her own space when she was finished feeding.

Once we put the side on the cot we also moved it away from the bed. I don't think she even noticed.

The 40 minutes sleep thing is the length of a babies sleep cycle, your DD is probably in the process of trying to link more than one sleep cycle together to sleep longer but certain things like dummies /white noise can help them with this if they are struggling.

It's probably also worth googling the 4 month sleep regression as that may also interfere with your plans and to be forewarned is to be forearmed (although my DD was like yours and didn't sleep particularly well anyway at that point so not much to really regress from, the 9 month sleep regression was an absolute horror though).

It's recommended that they sleep in the same room as you until at least 6 months, I'm not sure from your post if you are meaning you want to go back to your own room or just put a bit more physical distance between you in her room.

Thanks for the reply (changed username)! I moved into her bedroom with her in preparation for 6 months! She does have 40 mins alone at beginning of night as have to put DD1 to bed but then I'm in with DD2 watching iPad after that. My first never slept well but she was more independent, would sleep in cot away from me and in car/pushchair so this is all different! I remember the 9 month regression being the worst.....it timed perfectly with a return to work