Bedtime Routine for 4 Month Old?

[Orionids]

Please can you tell me your bedtime routine and rough timings of your last nap of the day & how long it lasts.

My little girl (4 months) is going through the sleep regression at the moment and what was once our solid bedtime routine is no longer working for us. Taking this as a chance to switch it up and help her better - she is not a self soother yet so any way to help her with that would be fab but I’m more than okay soothing her to sleep right now.

She is only managing 30 min naps during the day right now where she used to do 1-2hr naps.

Just interested to see what works for others and hopefully take some advice please. 😊

Last nap about an hour-90min before bed. In that time she will sometimes have a bath, but not always. Then when she's ready to sleep (between 7-8.30ish) I take her upstairs, put her in a clean nappy, clean suit, sleeping bag, daddy gives her a cuddle while I get ready for bed and then I take her into our room, turn the lights out and feed her to sleep in the dark. Depending on whether or not I had a drink with dinner, I put her down in her cot or I feed her lying down on my bed. She wakes every 1-3 hours through the night and I feed her back to sleep, either sitting up and then putting her back in her cot, or lying down and then moving away from her. Husband has been temporarily banished to the spare room.

In the daytime, she exclusively contact naps as it's the only way she sleeps for more than 40min.

My philosophy for sleep regression is to provide as much support as baby needs and make adjustments afterwards. There's a LOT of development going on already right now, sleep cycles, rolling etc, so I just let her get the hang of all that and then I work on independence afterwards. 4m is too young for self soothing for the majority of babies anyway, and it's an exhausting time - survive that and then make changes!

Last nap is about 30-50 minutes, in the sling.

4 month sleep regression can be a killer.... my advice... no matter what routine you try it won't work. They aren't capable of understanding when it's sleep time. I'm assuming you are on maternity leave still so go with the flow.... trying to force a baby to sleep will only stress you both out. Sleep when baby does if needed. Baby wants to play at 4am? Then you play. Honestly letting go of a routine & when baby 'should' sleep was the best thing I ever did.
My boy is 9 months now & generally sleeps through, the only routine I have is from about 6pm I close the curtains, lower the telly & have a quiter home.
4 months is a huge developmental leap. It does pass I promise!

Hey lovely!

My little boy is 4 months tomorrow, we have really got into our stride the last few weeks. The main reason has been teaching him to self soothe! I am not a beleiver of letting them crying it out as that breaks my heart so i opted for my own method of a few different ideas and it has worked well.

I follow my usual routine of wake window, bottle, swaddle, dummy and rock then I put him down drowsy. If he cries I go straight in and pop dummy in, if he closes eyes and settle I leave him, if not I rock again to sleep. This has beeb a game changer!!!

At night, I keep him awake from 5pm to 7pm, around 6.30pm I bath, lotion, fresh jammies, swaddle, story, dummy, rock to sleep! He goes down by 8pm , I dream feed at 10pm and he either sleeps through to 6am or wakes once.

We also do something we call the dummy reset lol! If he's upset whilst soothing we take dummy out, let him have a little 10 second cry then pop it back in, it sounds ridiculous but it works.

It's all trial and error, and what works one week, fails miserable the next haha!

Xx