4.5month old self soothed to sleep... Then multiple wake ups

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Hello

Despite the awful 4 month regression, we've been making huge progress on my LO's ability to self soothe to sleep, knowing that everyone says this is the key for them staying asleep longer. We've gone from needing to rock/hold/feed to sleep to putting in cot awake and sleeping within 5 mins, no crying. All good... Or so I thought. But it's done nothing to help multiple wake ups. In fact, they seem to have gotten worse. We've gone from 2-3 to 4-5. I don't get it as self soothing clearly isn't an issue? I try to feed as much as possible during the day, give plenty of good nap time (usually about 4 hours, often links sleep cycles for a 1?5hr nap), early bedtime of 7pm.

A bit disappointed as I thought we were nearly there but we were getting better sleep when we had to rock/hold/feed. If anyone's been through similar I'd love to know of there is anything else we should be trying.

Thanks

Are you feeding every time she wakes?

It could be that having a full tummy/comfort of having been fed is part of the sleep association.

Could be baby is just in a light sleep phase and you are rushing in to feed before she has a chance to go back to sleep.

Do you think it is for comfort for some feeds and then a full feed the other ones?

I realised one of mine around that age was literally just having a quick snack so I just did pick up put down and didn't feed her for that feed anymore.

I was utterly focused on feeding her loads during the day though, 98th Centile baby and when we switched to bottle feeding when I returned to work around that age she would down a full to the brim bottle in a few minutes 😳 no wonder I was starving all the time!

Honestly, it just sounds normal for the 4 month regression. 4.5 months is still such a tiny baby to be worried about self soothing. Babies sleep gets better and worse all the time for many different reasons, even if you're being totally consistent about it.

Have they learned a new skill recently, like rolling or sitting? Developments like that often wreak havoc with sleep. Could even be teething? For me it helped me mentally deal with it if I understood why, and that it was likely just a phase. Fingers crossed for you it settles down again soon!

We've gone from needing to rock/hold/feed to sleep to putting in cot awake and sleeping within 5 mins, no crying.

That's great progress in itself. How long ago were you rocking and feeding to sleep? It might just be that the new settling methods are not yet embedded enough. Babies aren't machines- it isn't the case that you make Change A and that results in Outcome B immediately. The outcome of your change will come, but needs time to become ingrained habit.

If you're baby is only four and a half moths old then there isnt much time for for anything to have become an ingrained habit over her entire life, let alone a few weeks.

As mentioned above by another poster, feeding and nutrition are unavoidably linked and this can be an issue. Full tummy can become a sleep association even if baby isnt feeding to sleep - so the habit of feeding upon waking is a good habit to be in, so that feeding is nowhere near sleep. Also linked is overall calorie need, so it's all very well using non-feeding settling methods at night, but if baby is hungry then baby will still wake up. The way to avoid this is to feed more in the day, a lot, lot more.

Thanks all for your replies

@RandomMess yes I do tend to feed to sleep in the night. I'm feeding on demand and just got in the habit of it. Baby is a snacker so only ever feeds for about 10mins max anyway, so it's hard to know sometimes if it's comfort or not. She does seem to take in a fair amount each time. We have tried to have my partner settle her for the wake ups we suspect might just be for comfort, but it only ever works once in a blue moon. Perhaps I do rush in too quickly to soothe her, I just start panicking that were waking up the neighbours!

@EyeDrops yes suspect it is maybe a question of waiting it out. She's trying to perfect rolling at the moment (she's done it both ways, but not very fluidly yet) so maybe it is that. She does always dig around in her mouth and chew things so we did wonder about teething, but there isn't anything coming through imminently.

@FATEdestiny I know she's still so young but she's never been a good sleeper and thought we should try to encourage good habits as early as possible. We'd held/rocked/fed her to sleep her entire life before about two weeks ago. I honestly didn't think 'put them in the cot drowsy but awake' would EVER work for her, but she's been doing it consistently the past week so I was overjoyed! Only to be so gutted a couple of hours later by the first of many wake ups (more than we've ever had, even in newborn days). I'm trying to offer milk as much as possible, but it's tough as she's in that very distracted phase of being more interested in the world around her. She's feeding at least every two hours, often a bit more frequently, which from what my GP said is quite a bit more than lots of babies her ahe

If you feed her to sleep that is her sleep association...