Do I need to change something? 4.5mth old sleep

[AmIDoingItRight]

Hi, hoping someone can offer some words of wisdom here! Sorry it's long!

My DD sleeps well, I think, but it's not what I like and I think she probably could do with longer night sleep?

She goes down around 8 and now sleeps through until 4.30 for a feed but then won't go back to sleep and she's up for the day! She used to get up between 2/3am for this feed and then up for the day at 5/6am.
She does stir /1 or 2 small whinges before 4am that with one "shush" she goes back to sleep with. When she doesn't go back to sleep and it's not whingey I know it's because she needs her feed.

When she wakes so early I have a musical projector that lasts 10 mins, I put this on twice before I get up with her after putting her down after her 4.30 am feed. At this 4.30am feed she's almost fallen asleep at the bottle (given after a short breastfeed, my only breastfeed - long story, and not something I'm going to give up). Problem is she wakes when being burped or just as she's put back into the next to me cot, so that's why the projector goes on, being rocked/bounced back to sleep doesn't work at this point. She's chatting away merrily, neck straining to see everything etc etc.
She used to fall asleep at the bottle when she fed earlier, say 2/3am.

We get up after staying in bed as long as she'll tolerate before getting bored, usually after two cycles of the musical projector (so that works out at 45/55 mins roughly after waking, because I change her nappy first, then breastfeed, then bottle, try to get her back to sleep and fail and then musical projector).

Once we're up she has time awake downstairs (awake time since waking up for feed is never more than 2 hours) then a nap (lasting anywhere from 45 mins to 2hrs (latter is very rare). She then has the usual no more than 2 hour wake windows followed by naps etc. Her naps equate to about 3.5 hours, we try to get her to nap longer but it doesn't happen. She contact naps.

So with 7.5 hrs at night, 3.5 hours day she's only sleeping 11 hours in 24!!! But she seems happy with it I think but every bit of research I do suggests she should be doing 11 hrs at night alone and then 3/4 hrs in the day!

I don't like the 4.30am starts, she probably should sleep more so what should I do? She's consistently had 9-10 hours s night since 2/3 months so she's not going to magically sleep for 11.... is she just a baby who needs less sleep?!

I would say from what I read 430am wake ups are classic overtiredness symptoms. Lay out on here her nap pattern in day and awake times.

There's not really a pattern of naps but it's like up for 2 hrs, 45min -2hr nap, up for 1.5hr and a 45 min nap, up for 1-2hrs, 45 min nap sometimes it's 30 mins etc. I don't let her stay awake for more than 2hrs.

I have always been advised double nap length awake time, so if sleeps 1 hour 2 hours awake but needs to be asleep at end of awake time. 45 mins. 1.5 hours awake with going sleep by 1.5 hours. Never awake longer then 2 hours.

Thanks I'm sort of doing that I think. What about introducing a dream feed?

I was going to say dream feed. If she is waking up specifically for a feed, beat her to the punch so she doesn't wake up for it

@samwitwicky thanks. So I've just been reading up on them, never done them before! Do I do it first part of the night, or set an alarm for like 3.30am?

[quote AmIDoingItRight]@samwitwicky thanks. So I've just been reading up on them, never done them before! Do I do it first part of the night, or set an alarm for like 3.30am?[/quote]

My DS used to wake around 1am. Because I had got used to waking around that time I automatically woke up so used to feed him before he woke up.

He's almost 7 now so I'm not sure of the right advice. My gut feeling would be to wake up 3.30-4am to start, and then either bring it forward slowly over time, or reduce the amount of milk (eventually switching to water - sorry not sure if your baby is formula or breast-fed) so she stops waking altogether at that time.

Good luck! x

Loved a dreamfeed. Stopped the night feeds for us. Took a few days or so for the middle of night feeds to stop. But it did. And we have just dropped the dreamfeed. We did ours about 11pm ish. We introduced at about 5 months but should have done sooner

Just be aware of the awake times. It's makes all the difference and encourage the longer nap the better. Don't forget 4 months sleep regression at this age

Just be aware of the awake times. It's makes all the difference and encourage the longer nap the better. Don't forget 4 months sleep regression at this age thanks. Yeah we desperately try for longer naps. We think we've been through the regression, we had a few weeks where she'd throw a tantrum before each nap and sleep time. She's stopped that now. Her nighttime sleep has actually got better rather than worse Xx