4 month old sleep advice

[Tigger83]

Hi

My ds is 16 weeks and we've had a LOT of health issues getting to this point including sever tongue tie, problems with feeding and supply, hip dyspraxia, potential dairy and soya allergies and very bad reflux. At his worst and up until 13 weeks he'd only sleep on me and only for short periods of time with waking every 45mins to 2hrs....

However we are now in a much better position, his reflux is being managed, he's managing longer asleep periods he will sleep in crib, car seat and pram now. His harness comes off tomorrow and we see a consultant for his allergies/reflux at the end of the month.

He is a small baby, tracking the 2nd percentile and is only 11lb11oz bw 7lb 1oz. My supply is much better and we 90% breast feed with one formula bottle at night, he takes anything from 190-300 in that bottle but takes him a while and he is fed on demand at all other times.

If you've got this far thank you but I wanted to give all the facts first!! I am not expecting him to sleep through but I just wanted to ask some advice on his routine and if I need to be doing anything different or anything I can improve on, now he's feeling a bit better I feel I'm in a better position to look at it!

Currently:

Wakes 8am
feeds till 8:15/8:30
Play time till 10:30
Sleep: 10:30- 11:15/11:30
Feeds: 11:15/11:30 for 15mins or so
Playtime: 11:30/11:45-13:00
Sleep:1pm-1:45
Feeds: till 2pm ish
Playtime: 2-3 ish
Sleeps: 3-5/5:30
Feeds: 5:30-5:45
Playtime:5:45-7pm
Nap: 7-7:30
Big bottle 8:00
Awake until 11
First night wake up either 12:30 or 3:30 depending on how good the night is then often hourly wake ups from 3:30 if bad night if good he'll go down till 6:30 then 7-8/8:30

I'm happy with the day routine, it sometimes goes awry but generally won't stay awake longer than 1:30-2hrs however I'd like to get bed time closer to 8pm I know we need to drop the 7pm nap but even without that sleep time is never before 10! I offer feeds before naps too if wanted as I am conscious of his weight gain etc being a small baby.

Thanks for any advice you can give 😀

Oh and I have to feed to sleep at night he won't go to sleep drowsy etc... although does self settle a little in the night

Oh and also after big bottle I then breast feed until he sleeps

Hopefully bumping.....

Similar situation for me too...anyone out there?

I’m not an expert. You’re about to hit the 4 month sleep regression, when things are likely to shift quite a bit anyway, so it’s not a great time to try impose order imo. In the next month or so I’d look for the nap closest to the bedtime you want, introduce a bedtime routine that you repeat every day, ensure room is dark thereafter, and he should slowly start to get the memo. Others with a more structured approach / more experience may weigh in with other ideas.

I found it really hard to get my DD to go to bed early she is one now and sometimes we are still trying to get her to sleep at 9pm esp when she has a late nap.
A good piece of advice someone offered me was to try and bring everything forward by 15 mins every few or even each week so they slowly start to nap abit earlier/go to bed earlier often without realising. It did take me quite a while but went from 10pm bedtime to 7.30pm.

The last couple of nights he's been going down around 10 and waking around 6:30 with a feed at 3:30 so getting earlier! I will look at bedtime routine and see if I can bring naps forward a bit!

Well he's gone down at 8:30 after a busy day today so we will see!! Had perfect naps all day and been a little angel although woke at 5:30am (fortunately went back down at 7am!)

My DD is 4.5 months and seems to have a similar pattern but with feeds a bit closer and no bottle. I keep trying (have tried since 8 weeks) but she's refusing so far (have tried all sorts!). I think you're doing an amazing job! Sorry no useful advice just hugely impressed with the longer afternoon nap which I struggle with.

I feel that his first nap might be a bit too late, at 16 weeks I think most babies still only have awake time of 1.5hrs? So maybe nap at 9:30, unless he just really doesn’t seem tired then.

I’d agree you should drop the 7pm nap and maybe just gradually bring bedtime earlier. Like PP said a good bedtime routine and a dark room etc should help.

Also I think just keep trying to see if he will settle on his own, without breastfeeding, my daughter just suddenly self-settled at 16 weeks when I happened to put her down while I did something, I hadn’t expected it at all.

Good luck!

Hi

First nap is usually between 1:30-2:30 of waking he leads it. Most naps aren't breastfed to sleep only night time... he hasn't grasped self settling entirely yet, getting there though!

Last night was bloody awful napped perfectly all day only had a small nap around 6 so was exhausted and went down easily at

Sorry posted too early....

Went down easily at 8:30 then woke every hour until 12. Then woke at 2:15 with a nappy breech which involved complete outfit change and so he was then wide awake tried in vain for an hour to settle him gave up and took him downstairs until he was showing signs of tiredness so finally got him back down at 4:30 woke up at 6:30 and currently refusing nap!

My 19 week old just doesn't map during the day. He cat naps, at best we might get an hour or two hour nap once a day and then no others. Which has been fine as he has been happy enough with that and was cluster feeding all evening going to bed at 10 usually self settled. For a good few weeks it was bed at 10 fed once at some point usually between 3-5 then sleep to 7/8 - perfect!
The past 2 nights he actually has had a couple hours of nap during the day but has been 10/11 at night before settling to bed then up at 2, 4,6, 7. I'm knackered! Thing is he does feed at all those times although last night he would settle at 4 was awake for over an hour.
He was born on the 2nd percentile at only 5lbs but he is starting to catch up now on 9-25th percentile so I don't know if it is a growth spurt or what. Been about the weeks although last night definitely the worst

Same @Smurf123

My 19 week old also used to sleep 7-7 with a dream feed at 11pm and a quick feed at 3ish am before dropping off perfectly. I didn't know how lucky I was. He is now up at 10pm feeding and faffing, then 2, 3, then 4am when he refuses to sleep anymore.

I'm putting it down to the dreaded regression in hopes that it'll get better soon!

@Floozymum hope you start getting more sleep too. Good to hear it isn't just us going through it though. I was beginning to think i wasn't providing enough for ds to eat.. (Still wondering this a little!)