4.5 mo won’t resettle back to sleep after 4am

[graysor]

We’re right in the thick of the 4month sleep regression, with ds waking every 1.5-2 hours overnight. Sometimes dh can resettle him with a bit of rocking, but mostly I just bf him back to sleep. The problem is that he gets harder and harder to resettle (even after a bf) through the night. Until around 4 when he is wide awake and impossible to get back down.

How best to handle this? Co sleeping isn’t helping.

I remember when dd was this age she was the same and we resorted to carrying her in the sling as that’s the only thing that would settle her. But I really don’t want to do that again. Starting the day by carrying a baby for 2.5 hours from 4am is not much fun!

Help!

In case relevant, He goes to bed around 6.30 and I aim for his morning nap to be around 2-2.5 hrs from when he wakes up. He’ll sleep for 30-45 minutes then.

Following with interest as I have similar issues with my 4 month old - after having a nightmare DC1 with sleep, I prioritised his sleep from birth and he is generally a dream - naps well, can leave him awake and puts himself to sleep etc but he's also been waking at 4am not wanting to sleep lately. If he's really upset, I just cuddle him in the dark but I'm refusing to get him up for the day or stimulate him in anyway.

I am dealing with the same thing! For the last 3weeks (ish) my 17 week old has been waking for the day around 4-4:30am - this is after he woke every 40-60mins during the night! He is EBF and refuses a dummy or a bottle. So it gets a little tiring.
For the last few weeks his naps have been hit and miss too, (he has always napped on me during the day or in the sling out and about etc) so I decided to try a routine, I’m not for crying so im trying a very gentle approach. Until now he had always been fed and rocked to sleep for naps and bedtime, he had no idea how to self soothe, I’ve never put him down in the chicco drowsy, it’s always been fed and rocked and passed out in my arms and that was only for bed, didn’t bother with chicco during the day!! In all honesty I’m ok with that but my husband and I are due one night away in a couple of months so thought I try and stop the feeding to sleep for naps and bedtime! So now as soon as he wakes and I know he isn’t going to fall back to sleep (4/4:30am) I get up (it’s horrendous) I turn on the light, cuddle, chat, bum change dressed for the day. Around 5:15/5:30am I feed him. Play until 6am (or 1.5hrs from waking) then prepare for nap!!
I used to just lay on the sofa with him, boob in his mouth, twinkle twinkle rocks and rubs and he’d eventually go, now I take him back to the bedroom, curtains closed, hushed voice, white noise and swaddle. I cradled him in my arms and initially let him suckle for a few minutes then rocked him and so on and so forth until he slept, then hold 15 mins and transfer into chicco.(could take 40mins to get him to sleep st first) and In the beginning he woke immediately in the chicco and I had to redo the whole suckling/rocking thing.
Each day, for every nap I lessened the time he suckled and the time rocked him. I cannot believe it but this week for the first time in 4 months he didn’t fed to sleep and he was very drowsy once swaddled and in my arms after a minute or 2. We are now practising putting him in the chicco drowsy not passed out but it’s hard! He is getting there though. I’ve lost what little sleep there was to be had worrying about not having a self soothing baby! Mum shaming is very real!!
He now naps every 2 hours, last nap is normally around 3:30-4:30, then awake play, prep for bed. (Bath,book the usual and asleep by 6:30)
The weird thing is (and this was not planned) I have been giving him his first feed of the day around 40 minutes of him waking and he had since started sleeping to that exact time, I’m guessing it’s like his internal alarm clock (I’m going to add a couple of minutes to it each day) see if we can sleep too 6am at least!
I still breastfeed him back to sleep most of time during the night, I have noticed that by dreamfeeding him around 8pm and 11pm (both boobs) he has been sleeping longer stretches - last night until almost 3am!! It’s my first baby and it’s all trial and error I know, but this has been Woking for us!