4 month old bedtime & day time naps

[DFPE]

Hi there,

I’m in desperate need of help trying to get my 4 month old to sleep earlier at night and also during the day!

She was breastfed until 3 months and moved onto the bottle. She was on aptamil but it upset her tummy & was constipated to we’ve moved her to Comfort aptamil which has made things a lot better.

She has always been good at sleeping through the night but she won’t go down until 1am/2am at the earliest. It’s been this late bedtime since she was born so I don’t believe it’s related to the change to bottle!
But from then, she can sleep right through until 10am. I know I shouldn’t really complain but it’s not ideal and I struggle to stay up really late every night. It’s awful when I need to be up in the morning for something as i dread bedtime as I know I’ll be shattered!
My husband and I are at absolute breaking point! I’m not expecting her to sleep 7pm-7am, but even a 10pm bedtime? Our health visitor is no use so looking for personal experience!

We’ve have tried getting her up earlier in the mornings to try getting her into a routine but she still goes to bed at 1am and because of the lack of sleep, I’m absolutely exhausted.

She used to be really good at day time naps but recently she could be up from 3pm until 1am. I would try and put her down for a nap but she would either wake instantly or wake 30 minutes later crying. Dr thinks she has colic so I give her infacol!

Any suggestion on getting her to sleep earlier and with more naps?
I’ve not tried letting her cry it out - not sure if she’s too young for that and I also don’t think I could do it!!

Thanks!

Forgot to add that I can never get her to sleep in her crib. I need to rock her in her pram and then lift her!

Hi, I posted a similar thread a few weeks back about my then 16 week old being a night owl. She is now 19 weeks and still the same. Very similar situation to you by the sounds of it in that she just won't settle down for the night until really late but will happily sleep in. I think I am just going to go with it for now until 6 months when she can be left in the cot alone and work on settling her in there earlier on her own. I can't face the prospect of losing my evening fighting to get her in bed earlier and then still not getting an earlier night!

Its seems that everyone else has babies who can't stay awake past 7PM and are up at the crack of dawn so nice to hear I'm not the only one with a night owl!

@DFPE what is your baby's daytime sleep routine?

Given that babies of this age should not spend longer than about 2h awake in one go, I suspect your baby is chronically sleep deprived and exhausted and that level of sleep deprivation for your baby is resulting in it being close to impossible for her to be calm enough to go to sleep peacefully.

Your problems will almost certainly he solved by having much more frequent daytime naps with less time awake between naps.

As a point of reference, the awake time (The time between waking from one daytime nap until going to sleep for the next one) wants to be around double nap length, give or take 15 mins. So a 30 min nap means 60 minute (45-75 min range) awake time. A 1h nap wants a 2h awake time until next nap (1h45-2h15 range)... and so on.

So if your baby wakes at 10am, then a typical day might go:

10am wake
12pm nap - 1pm wake
3pm nap - 4pm wake
6pm nap - 6.30pm wake
7.15pm nap - 8pm wake
10pm bedtime

Over time, as baby is less over tired and better rested, you can move your bedtime forward by one 'nap'- so put to bed at 8pm instead of 10pm and expect to get up at 6am to 8am the next day.

Hi @WutheringShites86 - thank you for your reply! I'm so glad it's not just me! Seems like we're both in the same situation! It's hard going but I'm grateful I can sleep in until 10 with her but it just can't continue! Here's hoping we can both break this routine and get them sleeping at normal hours lol

Hi @FATEdestiny - thank you for the advice on day time naps! She was pretty decent at sleeping during the day but was never the same each day! And recently (since she changed to bottle) her daytime naps are almost nonexistent! Here was yesterday's routine:
Woke 10am
Put down to nap 12:30pm...woke up at 1pm and wouldn't go back to sleep
Put down again around 3pm after a feed etc...only slept for 30 minutes again
This continued at 5pm and then 8pm.

And if I'm honest, by that point I give up!

We have tried taking her out in the car or taking her for walks, but her naps are just so much shorter.

Sleeping through from 1 til 10? You're lucky! My baby won't sleep longer than 2.5 hours unless I'm holding him. I'd love 8 or 9 hours of sleep at any point in the day or night. I'm frazzled! Lol

I think your expectations are too high tbh. Even if you have to get up at 7 for work, thats a block of 5-6hrs, which is pretty good. I don't get a block like that with my nearly 2 year old.

My toddler is back to waking between 1-3hrly, and is sometimes up for a couple of hours block in the night (sometimes up to 4hrs). In comparison, your newborns sleep sounds great. Enjoy it whilst it lasts, and if you want to go to bed sooner, well you can take it in turns with your partner surely.

@MJBmummy Oft - that is hard going! How old is your wee one?

@Weallliveinamonkeysubmarine - Aw I’m sorry to hear that your wee one doesn’t sleep! I didn’t appreciate how hard sleep deprivation was until I had my baby and spent time in hospital when she was born! My health visitor suggested a sleep support worker to me which is an offer I might take up - maybe there’s someone like that for older children?

I wouldn’t say my expectations are too high - she sleeps so well during the night, and as I said in my original post, I shouldn’t complain, so I’m merely looking to move her bedtime earlier.

Last night she went to sleep 11pm-8:30am which I think is amazing so long may it continue!

Thanks for all your help :)

Here was yesterday's routine:
Woke 10am
Put down to nap 12:30pm...woke up at 1pm and wouldn't go back to sleep
Put down again around 3pm after a feed etc...only slept for 30 minutes again
This continued at 5pm and then 8pm.

With only 30 minute naps, I would reduce the awake time between naps to 1h ish. This will reduce over tiredness by bedtime.