Transition to own room || Baby still cluster feeding

[kalicia]

My lo has just got over the 4 month sleep regression after what felt like forever. She was waking up every hour, fighting naps, and not getting into a deep sleep at all.

Luckily I have seen some light at the end of the tunnel and she is now getting into deep sleeps. But now the problem is when she does wake up (every 3 hours, like a newborn) she cries for milk as it’s the only thing that will get her back to sleep. Sometimes it’s for the dummy, but more often it’s milk.

She is 5 months old and atm she gets woke up very easily, which means when it’s her bedtime I sit upstairs in my room in silence next to her as she takes a while to get to sleep. I am wanting to transition her into her cot next month in her own room (next to mine). As I feel like it would benefit her because of less noise. Atm any noise I make in my room just wakes her up, it could just be me turning around in bed. However, I am unsure how to do this since she is cluster feeding. Am I going to have to go into her room every 3 hours when she cries for milk? Or is there anything I can try and do to help this transition.

I would happily keep her in my room longer but just like I said she really struggles and takes a long time (can be HOURS) before she gets into a deep sleep, and any noise just makes her alert.

I will also note that this cluster feeding only started during the sleep regression. Before she slept amazing in the night, would sleep 8pm-4am, have 1 feed then back to sleep till around 8am. She was more reliant on the dummy back then. However milk was the only thing comforting her and giving me sleep during this 4 months of hell so now she is drinking a lot, I’d say 4 bottles from when she is put down to sleep (8pm).

Any advice?

4 bottles overnight seems a lot to me. Is she getting enough calories in the day? How many oz is she taking in each? And when is her actual ‘wake up time’, when she has a bottle and is up for the day?

@Blueeyedgirl21 she’s just stayed steadily below the 50th centile so her weight is fine. When she feeds in the night it’s 4 bottles from 8pm every 3 hours, these bottles I only do 4 ounces, sometimes she will drink it all and sometimes maybe only 2 or 3 so it’s not too much really.

I’d say she drinks about 6-7 ounces every 3-4 hours. From her wake which is usually 8:30-9:30. She will have a bottle when she wakes, then another around lunch time, another around 4ish then another before she sleeps. She also doesn’t drink all at once she kind of snacks, has a big drink then 2 hours later I’ll have to make her a bit more.

I am thinking maybe she is waking up thirsty but obviously I can’t offer her water till 6m. Either that or the milk is comfort for her since she’s got into this habit since it was offered during sleep regression.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and I’m afraid I don’t have good news. 🫠 My son entered the 4 month regression 13 weeks ago and has seamlessly transitioned into the 6 month regression! 🥲 I was sleeping in my own bed in his nursery and he was in his cot and it started feeling like I was waking him up, so I moved out. That lasted for about two weeks! He slept better for one night and then was back to waking every 2 hours. At some point I started bringing him into bed with me as I was too knackered to keep getting in and out of bed all the time and he slept a little better that way too. Then he started crawling so I ditched the bed frame, put the mattress on the floor and then sidecarred his cot (sans legs) to give both of us more space (somehow a 5 month old can take up an entire king size bed 🤷🏼‍♀️)

I’m acutely aware there’s also an 8 month regression (and pretty commonly 7-10 months are the worst sleep in the first year, 3 months being the best, contrary to popular belief) so I’ve given up on the idea of sleeping in my own bed and having my baby in his own room without me.

They go through a growth spurt around 6 months so feeding more is really normal. And even though babies might have slept through around 3 months old (mine did too), it is still super common after the 4 month progression for them to keep waking to feed until around 1yo.

I would not recommend moving baby to own room until night weaned (as a min weaned 11pm-7am, but ideally all thr way through the night) and mostly sleeping through and easy to settle to sleep.

I would recommend finding an alternative way to settle baby to sleep in the night without feeding.

Giving your baby almost half their calories through the night is going to create problems and could do with changing. It will affect babys ability to wean into solids.

You want to be aiming towards 100% of calories bring daytime hours. Baby might need 1, possibly 2 feeds a night. More than that and it's comfort feeding.