4 month old- FTM advice please!!!!

[Kate3150]

Hello,

I’m pretty sure my baby is going through 4 month regression. Hes woken every 2 hours for the past few nights.
He’s EBF and every time he wakes I give him a little feed. Is this the right thing to do? It’s all new to me and would love advice from those who have been through or in the midst- TIA X

Hi! Firstly there’s no right or wrong - just whatever works or doesn’t! If he’s settling easily with the boob, personally I’d carry on. Whatever gets you the most sleep that night.

My son was a frequent waker from birth, so much so the 4 month regression was just a continuation of his bad sleep. We ended up co sleeping for about 2 months he was up so much at night. By 8 months he was up once a night, by 11 months he was sleeping through for 10-11 hours a night. I wasted soooo much energy fretting that I was setting him up for bad habits and long term issues, but it wasn’t true. It is possible to feed on demand, co sleep even, through a regression and not be still doing it months/years down the line (not that there’s anything wrong with that if it suits you and your child though!) They change super fast and habits can always be changed later if needs be.

I really rate the Lucy Wolfe sleep training approach - she has a book. She breastfed her children and never comes across judgemental of mothers who breastfeed to sleep, unlike other books I read that made me feel rubbish. We did her gradual retreat sleep training around 8 months, when feeding to sleep stopped working and he wanted to learn to go to sleep himself (cried if we rocked/held him, cried if I tried to boob him - he seemed to want to just learn to sleep by himself). The book has chapters for younger babies too though and I remember reading it thinking I’d have liked to have tried some of her suggestions earlier.

Watching with interest... DS is not quite 3 months yet but his quite-good sleep has turned to shit in the past week or so.

Peels that sounds like an interesting book. I feed to sleep most of the time, especially at bedtime, but have been fretting about forming bad habits.

Hi op

I'm a firm believer in they sleep when they're ready to, as an adult I still wake a few times in the night for nothing.

Four months, they're still so little and have lots of new development going on, starting to roll etc so their little minds are on overdrive. I found this to be the same whenever we hit a milestone, crawling, walking etc
I formula fed and would often find myself feeding my son sometimes three hourly when we'd hit some regression.

As other posters have said, there is no right or wrong just what works for your family. If you and baby are happy then continue what your doing. This time goes so quickly and especially with what's going on at the moment just indulge in your little one. Your doing a great job .

I have an almost 5 mth old. For me setting up a strict bedtime routine helped- massage, bath, feed both sides, then put him down sleepy (but not asleep) and reading something aloud to him.

We're re in the middle of this at just over 5 months (LO was three weeks early so was surprised to not have any issues until a bit later!). Will definitely check out that book, thanks @Peelspeelspeels ! We're cosleeping to get by... I'm using the snuzpod as extra space to store things at the moment!

Around 4 months DD was still in the next to me cot and started waking every 2 hours. I decided to try leaving her for a couple of minutes (6 max) to see if she would settle without a feed... mostly she did and I got her up more quickly if I felt she was really crying and not just awake. Straight away we went from every 2 hours to waking max twice a night. It was a life saver.

Self settling is generally a myth, babies will learn to sleep when they are ready.
Forming bad habits is also a myth. I have always cuddled and fed to sleep, and only recently stopped at 18 months because DS didn't want to anymore.
Just follow your natural instincts.
I find baby books a waste of time; what could be more useful than your own motherly instinct?

I would also suggest reviewing his latch. I was feeding DS in the same position as newborn but it made him take in too much air (and not enough milk) as he got older. I now have to do a modified rugby hold