Conflicting advice re: 4 month sleep regression

[MandaLynn]

Maybe it's my sleep deprivation, but the advice around the 4 month sleep regression seems to conflict with itself?

On the one hand - do what you have to do to survive it. Continue to rock/feed/whatever to sleep as you had been.

Then - the way to get to the other side is for baby to learn how to self settle (and therefore not need you to rock/etc every hour)

But how do those work together? Do some babies just learn on their own and go back to their "old" sleep patterns? What if they don't - how do you get them out of the hourly waking (especially if sleep training isn't recommended till at least 6 months)?

Sorry that became a bit of a rambling stream of conscious, but I'm just. SO. TIRED.

Any advice or words of wisdom?

I found with both of mine that the 4 month regression was the time to teach them self settling techniques, including the bedtime conforters such as music playing, light projetor, soft comforter/muslin cloth etc. So both kids learnt that all those things meant bedtime, and when they woke in the night and they came back on it helps them to go back to sleep.

Its about setting good sleep associations.

I personally didn't want to have to cuddle/rock to sleep or co-sleep so i spent a lot of time focusing on the other bits and not just getting through it

No words of wisdom I'm afraid as we're going through this ourselves and unsure about how to handle it. As it is, I have zero energy during the overnight wakes to do anything except offer a boob and co-sleep. I tend to focus on the self settling at naps and at the start of bedtime. I have also tried to introduce a lovey comforter but so far she ends up with it over her face (I'm supervising) so we're going to try again with that in a few weeks time. No idea if I'm doing the right thing! I hope things do sort themselves out as I dread doing sleep training, but will have to for my sanity and health if things do not improve by 6 months. I hope you get some useful advice, which I can steal!

During this stage I tried as much as possible to have baby nap in a quiet, dark room rather than in the living room. I also really focused on the pre nap and pre bedtime routines to cue baby into it being time to sleep.
I had read somewhere that the first nap of the day is usually the best one to try get the baby to settle themselves so I focused on that first of all. Lots of patting, shushing, singing beside them in the next to me crib. That gave me the confidence to be more consistent during night. My 2nd had a dummy and that worked wonders BUT at 6 months she kept losing it during night and wasn't at stage of being able to find it and out it in herself so that caused a lot of sleep disruption later on. It's so hard to function when sleep deprived. Good luck.

I personally didn't want to have to cuddle/rock to sleep or co-sleep so i spent a lot of time focusing on the other bits and not just getting through it

@Youcancallmeirrelevant How did that work practically? We have a good bedtime routine and use white noise already, but I'm having to rock/cuddle her to sleep for all naps/bedtime/hourly wake ups.

I do pick up put down, so once they are calm i put them back in the cot, if they get upset again then i pick up to calm. we've used a dummy from day 2 as well which helps, and with all the sleep cues they have learnt it is 'bed time' and now put themselves to sleep quite quickly.

I can cope with broken sleep pretty well which helps

Oh and all daytime naps are in the pushchair, either because i'm out and about walking, or we use the pushchair in the hallway in the house as again he associates the pushchair with sleep

Thanks @Youcancallmeirrelevant
How long would you say it took them to settle using that approach? Did you do that while still room sharing - or were they in their own room?

DD won't take a dummy, which I'm sure would help if she could.

Do what you have to do, cuddle your baby! You can teach a baby to self sooth it is developmental and 4 months is far too young. It does pass, I’ve been there and come through the other side!

It is not conflicting advice, it is two separate positions. You either pick a side, or I guess you fudge it somewhere in the middle.

There's no point asking others in a way as it comes down to your parenting approach, which is a complicated mix of your personality, upbringing and influences.

I eschewed any form of sleep training and am glad I did as I had a better time that way. I have warm memories of the nights, although I also remember being absolutely fucking knackered, and then they grew out of needing me.

I don't want to scare you but our 4 month regression lasted 3 months because I didn't act sooner. I just continued to settle her as normal. She started waking every 2 hours. Then every 1 hour. Then every 45 mins. When 45 mins became the norm we decided on sleep training ( she was almost 8 months at this point). Controversial but it taught her self settling and she now sleeps 7-6 everyday with no wake ups. Some people think sleep training is cruel but I think letting her wake herself every 45 minutes to the point where she is barely getting any quality sleep is crueler!

She's up every hour at the moment @goodmorningsunny - unless I'm holding her (and sometimes even then). It's exhausting.

My first was a terrible sleeper from day 1, but DD2 was doing 7-8hr stretches pre-4 months when she was still swaddled. I know that was particularly good, but want something more than a couple hours sleep

My second is going through the 16 week sleep regression at the moment (at 13 weeks 😩) so I feel your pain.

I didn't do anything for the first week and she slightly improved going from 45 minute stretches to 2-3 hours (we were getting 7 hours before this kicked off). I have been doing a bit of co sleeping and just feeding with boob when she wakes up, just so we can both get a bit of sleep.

Given it's now been a couple of weeks I have started some sleep routines to try and help her self soothe. We have a little routine in place at night time and im moving away from rocking her to sleep. Past few nights I rock her for a few minutes but put her down in her cot before she falls asleep. If she settles then great, if not I go back to rocking and try again. At the same time I'm patting and shushing so hopefully I can eventually move away from rocking to sleep and just use just shhhh to settle her soon.

All of our naps have been in the pram, sling or car until now, so I'm working on those as well. Starting with the first nap of the day with same technique as above. She's just gone down for her first nap in her bedside crib 👏👏

As pp have said, it's up to you what you decide to do but there can be very strong options from people on either side! Ignore those and do what feels right for you and your baby.

While I have done a bit of cosleeping it's not what I want to do to get through the regression and longer term. Although helping her to self soothe is more work up front, i think it helps her in the longer term and with any future sleep regressions, teething, illness and just general life 😂 I did similar with my first and he's a brilliant sleeper so that's the route I'm going doing.

Whatever you chose to do I hope it helps and you get some decent sleep soon. Sleep deprivation really is hard! Xx

About 3 weeks, i moved DS to his own room at 4 months about a week after the sleep regression started.

Sleep is developmental and can’t be taught. Babies get through it, they start linking sleep cycles on their own and you don’t have to do anything. Self settling is a bit of a myth, and has been borne out of a misconception. Where the idea of babies self settling originated was describing temperament, not “skills”. It came from a study where they were looking at differences in babies, some are naturally “self-soothers” and others need more support, and nowhere was it suggested that those who don’t naturally self settle can be trained to do so.

Mine had a tough 4 month regression (that blended into the 6 month regression and then the 8 month regression), but came out of it once we got his reflux back under control. He still mostly wakes every 2-3 hours but occasionally does 4-6 hours, but he goes down easily at bedtime and back to sleep quickly at night too. I’ve always supported him to sleep at bedtime and respond overnight, it’s the quickest and I feel the kindest way. One thing that’s useful to remember is that it’s entirely developmentally normal for babies to wake at night to feed for the whole of the first year, and even toddlers often wake for many reasons. A full night for a baby is considered to be 5+ hours and expecting something like 12 hours is just setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment.

@MandaLynn, I could have written this myself! We're up almost every 40 minutes and have been for about a month now. It's torture. My 4mo DS will only fall asleep on my boob which means overnight wakings are entirely down to me. Very occasionally I catch him sleepy enough to rock to sleep, but even then, I'm up, again. Oh, and last night DS decided 2.30am was time for chit chat so everyone was up for 2 hours...

I hope the pick up, put down method works for you. My DS just ramps up and up till there's a boob in his face 90% of the time. It's exhausting. And I do understand it's natural, normal and healthy but that doesn't help in the moment. I really need to find a method that works that's not boob. For both our sakes.

@TheRookieMum It's so tough, isn't it? DD settles quickly on the boob but then WILL NOT let me put her down. So she sleeps decently, but I get about 2hrs of sleep a night as I'm up holding her.

@GinnyBee Not sure where you got that anyone is after 12hrs and no night feeds? That's not been suggested at all on here. I'd just like more than 45min, which I think is pretty reason

@MandaLynn it was more a general comment because I see it a lot that parents are worried that their 6+ month olds are waking to feed at night because of the noise on social media that they should be sleeping through, and also the various different definitions of what sleeping through means.

Yours will start to sleep longer than 45 minutes when they’re ready! In hindsight mine actually got through the sleep progression fairly quickly but his reflux was causing another issue so at the time it felt never ending. We took the road of least resistance and did whatever it took to get him to sleep and back to sleep as quickly and easily as possible, which meant bedsharing and nursing to sleep. Now he can get back to sleep when he wakes at night if he doesn’t need anything, I didn’t need to sleep train for that to happen.

@MandaLynn, it really is. But we survived another night, go us!!!

@MandaLynn If you're out there anywhere do you have an update on your baby's four month regression? Mine is 14 weeks and sounds very similar to yours, until 12.5 weeks he had one wake up from 8pm-7am and occasionally no wake ups at all with day naps pretty firm in cot, to now 2 hourly wakes and day naps only lasting 30mins if that.

I'm also not keen on co-sleeping, etc. but equally feel he's too small for much sleep training. I'm not against it, in fact given his previous champion self-settling I thought it would be worth trying some light training so I did a bit of pupd for naps but each pick up led to a longer settling time before I could put down again so don't think it will work until he's older. So basically I'm just desperate for guidance on what has worked for previously good-sleeping babies like this and how long the regression lasted.

Anyone any advice on this thread? My baby is in the thick of the 4 month regression :(

@NetflixViewer Hope you're on the other side now!!

@Dfjackson For us, I think what actually helped was moving DD into her cot. She settles down much better once she could spread her arms out. We had maybe two nights of being a bit difficult going to bed, then she really quickly got into the routine of waking once for a feed and straight back to sleep

Thanks for getting back to me, she’s still in the next to me crib which is a good size but with a sleepyhead shamefully :( she won’t sleep without it but maybe it’s time to try again this week so she can stretch out more will try this thank you.

@MandaLynn Thank you for replying! Yes, we did eventually get through, we've even had a run of the fabled 7-7 nights starting around 7 months which seemed to start at the point he really started eating solids.

But having come through it I'm still not sure of the answer to the central question of do what you can or help to self-settle. I got into the habit of rocking to sleep to help with the regression but after a certain point I realised that he was going backwards and even times where he would have happily self-settled during the regression (e.g. first nap of the day or going down at night) now required rocking. So one day around 5.5 months I took the advice up thread and focused on the first nap. I put him down and patted him but didn't rock him. There was about 15 mins of crying but it didn't feel too bad because he was a bit older, I knew he was able to sleep without rocking (he'd just got used to having it) and I wasn't leaving him. The next nap took less time and after that he was mainly going to sleep easily when put down. I still rocked him when he just wouldn't settle or was unwell or overtired etc. And I still fed when he woke at night but he started going down much more easily after the feeds and eventually, as I said above, the feeds stopped and he started sleeping through.

So I think that trying not to get into bad habits is important but also unavoidable when they're really little and won't sleep. But then you need to be prepared to get them out of the bad habits when they're a bit older.