4 month old waking every 2 hours

[pinkjessie]

Hi. My 4 month old son has been waking every 2 hours during the night since he was 16 weeks (now 20 weeks). He will just stir then go back to sleep with a little breastfeed. We cosleep because he just would never settle in his crib. Before this stage he would sleep for 5 hours at the start of the night, then usually another 3 and 2 hour stretches. Just wondering if anyone has had this with their babies and is it only a phase? He won't take a dummy during the night, I have tried and he is breastfed only. Thanks.

Ah, yes....the 4 month sleep regression. It can be a challenging time but soon passes (honest!)

I'm afraid that every 2h is the middle to easier end of 4 month regression! The worst ones for my friends were every 40m. How are his day naps? I found that once I cracked the day naps I started getting some 3h stretches and it improves from there.

Oh the 4 month sleep regression is definitely not fun. It lasted nearly 8 weeks here, but it will get better I promise.

Yes this is the 4month sleep regression, an important stage of development where the babies sleep cycles become like adult sleep cycles but can lead to them temporarily waking every 45mins or 2 hours or whatever they feel like. It's not fun.

You can do something about it now, or you can wait and see, or you don't have to decide now etc etc. my first child never recovered until we helped her learn to settle to sleep at 1 and my second got through it in a month (think I was better at knowing what to do second time round)

My 13 month old is still going through 4 month regression 🤣🤣🤣

Most do this. Then skills, teeth, growth spurt etc. All unsettles their sleep. If cosleeping works for you stay with it :)

He naps for around 30 mins every 1.5-2 hours. Usually on me during a feed or in the buggy/sling/car. I'm trying to get him into his crib for his first nap of the day after a feed. He hates lying flat because he has reflux 😕

What can I do about it now? Any tips?

I wouldn't worry about the dummy, sounds like he isn't keen and my two never took them either, one less thing to worry about further down the line.
What about working on baby having their first stretch of sleep (perhaps up until midnight) in their own sleep space and then co sleeping? I separated feeding and sleep by feeding pre bath in the light downstairs / away from bedroom. Post bath was cuddles and then settle in own sleep space / snuzpod etc. baby might not love this at first but consistency is key, not suggesting leave to cry but lots of cuddles and whatever they find comforting to go to sleep and then repeating that for any pre midnight wakes, at this age it should only take a couple nights for them to get this new routine.

Depends on what bit is bothering you most but reading your OP it sounded like you wanted to get that first stretch of sleep back so as long as sleep hygiene factors are all in place then I think it's just helping baby not feed to sleep for that first stretch.

Mine were both awful reflux, omeprazole was life changing for my first and was useless for my second. If you can feed 10mins after they wake from a nap and then have them upright for a good amount of time before their next nap then hopefully they might be able to start laying down for them

My baby's sleep went south the day he turned 4 months. It was awful, he was waking up every hour. For the 2 weeks before, he had been self settling really nicely (he found his thumb) with 2 wakes for feeding each night.

I was a shell of a human being. I tried co-sleeping but it didn't work.

We sleep trained at 4.5 (well a week off 5 months) and it worked like a dream. He only took 30 minutes of crying the first night which is actually shorter than the time we would usually spend rocking to sleep! So maybe consider sleep training if things don't improve. We felt comfortable doing it because he had shown signs of self settling already, he just needed a little push.

Well it may have been a fluke, but my non-sleeping 13 month old last night slept 8pm-4am in their cot, woke up and had a breastfeed then coslept until waking at 7am wanting more milk 🤯 pray for me this continues 😂

We never did any sleep training. Honestly with mine between allergies, teeth, skills etc I just knew there was always a reason for the bad sleep. For example, I noticed first few months every third week we'd have a really awful week which always coincided with clothes suddenly getting a lot smaller on them. An awful week and suddenly baby can crawl. Or a new tooth through. Baby did learn to walk yesterday also. Mine just has always been a clingy baby and wants comfort from his mummy.