4 month sleep regression and confused, have I ruined her sleep?

[Pippinsqueak]

Morning, my daughter who turned four months old yesterday was sleeping 4-6 hours for first sleep, then two hours then another two hours. A couple of nights ago things have gone tits up, she's hard to put down at night, taking multiple times (feeding to sleep) up to an hr and a half after each main waking and is waking after 20 or 40 mins after being put down on a couple of occasions. We ve gone down to three hr first sleep then hourly throughout the night.

I get that she's probably going through the four month regression, what I don't understand is why we are not told more about this. She is also teething.

Daughter has always largely bf to sleep (always at night) although there are times during the day only she falls asleep herself. Now I've read about the regression it says it's the worst thing I can do and should have stop it a long time ago (feeding to sleep). It also says I will ruin her sleep for life if I carry on.

My question is how the hell do I get her to sleep then? It says not to use anything, boobs,dummy (which she's doesn't like anyway) or rocking (which sometimes she falls asleep over my shoulder with gentle rocking). She shows she's tired by rubbing her eyes but never gets drowsy. She then gets really upset and starts crying and wants feeding then falls asleep. If I put her down before feeding she wakes fully and cries harder. Once I feed her I put her down once she is asleep a lot of the time, sometimes she sleeps for long others it just a quick nap.

What I'm confused about is do I try and keep her awake through the feeding and then put her down? How do I put a baby that doesn't get drowsy to sleep? Will I really ruin hers( and mine) sleep for life? Do I lets her cry for ten mins and see if she falls asleep? When she wakes at night she's wide awake no chance of falling asleep on her own as she starts thrashing around.

We have a bedtime routine, white noise, dark room etc

Sorry it's long

Good morning, exact same here at 4 months ( to the day) . Nothing we did worked I'm afraid to say. I suggest you co sleep safely until she reaches 6 months, in the meantime read Dr Ferber's book. Then do sleep training at 6 months. I don't know where we'd be without it. Game changer. 21 months now, we've had to referberize maybe twice since but only for a night. Mostly sleeps through the night. Naps fell into place as soon as we did the training.

Ah it's hideous isn't it!? Absolute torture and made a lot worse by a bunch of experts telling you that you caused it and that your baby will never sleep unless you 'fix' it.

We had exactly the same situation as you. It sounds like you get her to sleep ok (as we did, I still feed to sleep and he's 18m now) it's just that she wakes up.

What worked for us was: whenever he woke up we'd wait about one minute then DH would pick him up, take him for a nappy change (baby didn't love that) and then bring him to me to feed him. After about two weeks of that, my son stopped constantly waking up and went down to 1-2 wake ups a night. By 6 months he was sleeping through.

We also changed his day sleeps slightly in that there was a cut off. At 6pm I'd wake him up no matter what, so he'd be tired for 8pm bedtime.

Who knows if it was something we did/didn't do or if my baby just grew out of it.

Go easy on yourself. Don't feel guilty no matter what you decide. I know some people thing cry it out is mean but I think making a woman go through life sleep deprived is meaner, so do what you have to do.

Good luck

Im not sure there is anything you can do to help the 4 month sleep regression, mine also had no drowsy but awake state either. I ended up cosleeping.

4 months is really early, lots of babies don't settle into a pattern till a year. Just keep on doing what you do and ignore the books, they just make you feel like you are doing it wrong when you're really not. If bf makes her go back to sleep then do it, maybe she is not ready to drop a night feed yet anyway. You honestly won't teach her bad habits at 4 months! and at this stage, getting some sleep is more important for all of you.

I sometimes look back and wonder how I made it through the 4 month regression. It's so hard! But it doesn't last forever.

Please ignore all the 'experts' telling you not to feed to sleep. Your little baby is only 4 months old and gets great comfort from nursing. You're not going to ruin your child for life by offering them comfort to help them off to sleep. There must be countless adults who were fed to sleep as babies, but I can't say I've ever come across one who still needs to suckle on a breast to drift off. Plus breastfeeding can be bloody hard work so you might as well reap the benefits!

Keep doing what you're doing OP and it will get better. And in the meantime seize literally any opportunity you get to sleep

You haven’t ruined her sleep. The regression sucks but it’s normal and almost all babies go through it no matter how they are going to sleep (bf to sleep or not).

Nothing you do now is going to make a difference because she’s in the regression. Ride it out for 2-3 weeks and when things seem a bit more settled and she’s sleeping longer stretches again, then start trying to find different ways to get her to sleep.

I’ve been there, I KNOW it seems like there’s no other way but there is. What we did (and this wasn’t until 5 months) was

1. Putting to bed without feeding with bum patting and a nightlight that plays music. (there are lots of these). I put DS on his back, would sort of half lift his leg and do a firm rythmic pat on his bottom whilst that machine was playing. He would fall alseep!
2. Try not to BF at EVERY wake. Try leaving her in cot and patting like before with light to see if she goes back to sleep. It she is truly hungry she won’t settle.
3. Do her last feed before bed downstairs before bath. This helps break feed to sleep associations big time.

Make sure she is having at least 3 naps in a day. Night sleep often improves before day sleep

I have always fed to sleep. We hit the four month regression at 16 weeks but it only lasted two weeks. He’s now 23 weeks and I still feed him to sleep and he only wakes once or occasionally twice per night.

I worked myself into such a state worrying about the four month regression and the fact that I fed him to sleep and in hindsight I wish I’d just relaxed and gone with it.

Honestly I don’t think it makes a big difference what you do at this stage. They will learn to link sleep cycles and some just get the hang of it faster than others. I think it’s just pot luck. You just have to ride it out and do whatever helps you survive (day time naps, sharing shifts with partner etc.)

You do whatever you need to do. You will not ruin her sleep for life! Dummies saved me as I was unable to bf but feeding to sleep is fine too . She's only tiny.... babies do this!

Thank you everyone, her routine at the moment is she wakes about half seven in the morning and by nine she's ready for a feed and first nap for about 40 mins, then she wakes/plays etc until half 11 and then falls asleep again for 40 mins, then she ll have a longer sleep in the afternoons, then have another one about half six again for 40 mins, then we have a bath every other night, get into jammies, turn the lights down and settle down for the night with songs/reading etc. She starts rubbing her eyes around half right and then we go to bed at nine.

I've tried co sleeping in bed in the last and it was awful but she's in a next to me crib which is great. She used to go to sleep for 9:30, wake up at two or three, then again at 5 and wake around seven/half seven. All night feeds are breastfeeding to sleep. Half the day time sleeps she does on her own either when we walk in the pram or in the car or by being rocked on my shoulder.

Does this sound ok?? I got so worked up this morning I couldn't stop crying and I put lots of pressure on myself, I should have read your replies first.

Thank you for all your advice, this morning (before I read your comments) I tried to get her to sleep on her own with out boob and she cried for 45 mins straight (ten on her own and then my husband was trying to settle her so she wasn't on her own all that time) in the end I fed her to sleep but she only slept for half an hour.

So do you think I should just carry on as I am for the next few weeks and then sort her sleep out? She's been teething for about three weeks as well so that's not helping.

The thing is also she doesnt cry when she wakes up in the night she's just wide eyes and rolling around. She's never really cried when she wakes up, she's always up before me and I end up being face to face with a happy baby. But saying that when I gave left her ( and I have done for half an hr she's no where near sleepy.

I feel so guilty I don't know this stuff or how to do this ( but then again no first time mum does I imagine)

I just don't want to screw her up

I went through this. My advice is get through it with feeding to sleep/cosleep or whatever works.
There is always time down the line when things are more settled to address this. Babies change all the time. I was so worried I had created a feed to sleep only baby but now at 9 months it seems to have been a natural and gradual shift to self settling. Way easier than I thought.
I recommend reading book/see online info from Lucy Wolf.

There is nothing wrong with feeding to sleep!!!!!!
Sick of people saying that.

I also get "oh you're only making a rod for your own back" and quite a few people like to give me unsolicited advice on how to get him to stop feeding to sleep.

You do what works for you and your family!!

4 month sleep regression happens to all of us and it really sucks. The best you can do is stick to your routine and wait it out, I'm afraid.

If you dont want to go down the Ferber method (which really would not have worked with my DS. There are studies showing that although babies stop crying on the Ferber method, they still have the same amount of cortisol in their system. Which means they're still distressed but they've learnt you don't come when they cry), try Sarah Ockwell Smith

She's a bloody genius! She has a website but I downloaded her gentle sleep book. It was so good. She breaks it down into ages. She includes families that she has helped. She gives some brilliant suggestions.

White Noise really helps my DS. It has to be on all the time you want them to sleep though.

Good bath and bedtime routine.

Massage before sleep.

Stories.

Dimmed lights - red light if you can. Blue light inhibits melatonin production so avoid as many screens as you can. Even normal household bulbs emit blue light.

In all honestly do whatever you need to do during a sleep regression and deal with the consequences, if there even are any, later. I bf my ds to sleep until he was about 8 months and it has done him no harm. He is now 2 and he does still occasionally need rocking back to sleep if he wakes during the night but mostly is a brilliant sleeper and has been for the past year, he sleeps through no problem and settles himself to sleep. I found that once the regressions had passed after a few weeks he reverted back to his previous sleep patten so just do whatever you need to get through it. I honestly think at 4 months if your baby needs your comfort in any way to help sleep then do it.

If she isn't crying I'd just leave her!

@Pippinsqueak Can I ask why you get up to her if she isn't crying? What would happen if you left her to it?

@YesimstillwatchingNetflix I have left her and she will eventually crying, she spends all the time thrashing around.

After her first sleep which is usually between 4-6 hrs she does need feeding again and she used to then sleep 2-3 hrs and wake up hungry but if she wakes after an hr or so I do try and leave her.

The problem is that she doesn't get drowsy and go back to sleep. She goes from content to eventually crying after faffing around for ages

Feeding to sleep didn't ruin my son's sleep. He is a wonderful sleeper who sleeps all night in his own bed after years of feeding to sleep, bed sharing and frequent night waking. You are doing a wonderful job responding to your baby's needs and things will get better, I promise.

Like @PlinkPlink says, there is NOTHING wrong with feeding your baby to sleep. We are mammals, it is the biological norm for our species.

Your baby is so tiny still. If she wakes up hungry just feed her. You can’t ruin her sleep. She’ll sleep through when she’s ready. Until then just keep doing what you are doing and responding to her needs

I would also highly recommend Sarah Ockwell-Smith. She’s great.