4 month old won’t stay asleep

[Summersun91]

My baby is 4 months. This started at 3 weeks old so isn’t specifically related to a 4 months sleep regression.

She won’t nap for longer than 30 mins. Doesn’t matter whether it’s the pram, the sling, the cot or contact nap, max 30 mins. I use white noise, tried the rockit on the pram, try rocking her 5 mins before the 30mins is up to keep her asleep, try rocking her back to sleep after she wakes up. Nothing works. I wouldn’t mind if she was happy with a 30min nap, but with the exception of the first nap of the day when she wakes up happy, she’s generally cranky and upset for all the other naps and throughout the day, and clearly still tired.

She usually has 4x 30min naps during the day.

At night she is in bed for around 12 hours. The first 2 hours when we are downstairs watching tv are the worst (she is in the pram in a room next to us in the dark with the rockit and white noise on). She wakes up around 2-4 times during this first 2 hours, then when I go to bed she wakes every hour or 2. Sometimes I can rock her back to sleep, most of the time I have to feed her. Cosleeping doesn’t make any difference apart from it’s easier to feed her. When she was young I thought the regular wakings were due to discomfort from wind but that’s not obviously the case any more.

She will go to sleep easily but just won’t stay asleep.

Any thoughts as to why she wakes so much, and anything I can do to improve it? I feel like I’m just constantly trying to get her back to sleep, day and night.0

I'm way past this stage as I have a 3 year old but I've always found the Huckleberry sleep schedules very helpful to figure out sleep issues:

https://huckleberrycare.com/blog/4-month-olds-and-sleep

Have a look at wake windows, bedtimes etc. Sometimes you can see that the wake windows are too short or there's too long awake before bedtime that can help.

Are you feeding to sleep for naps and bedtime? I would always feed my son to sleep and then feed him back to sleep when he woke. We mostly did contact naps but he would nap for hours on me with the feeds at 4 months, I remember one 4 hour nap!

Thank you for your reply. I’ll try Huckleberry I didn’t think of that. I’ve seen sleep plans online but they are of no use as they assume babies sleep for longer than 30 mins. But would the Huckleberry one adjust to what she actually sleeps after I’ve put in some data?

No I don’t feed to sleep apart from the middle of the night. I found even from an early age it didn’t work for naps, and only sometimes for bedtime. And she does actually fall asleep easily, just doesn’t stay asleep.

Even contact naps she wakes at 30mins and I can’t rock her back to sleep.

I didn't actually use the app only the schedules on the website. That could be an idea if they do a free trial though 🤔 the schedule I linked does mention 30 minute naps so it does acknowledge that some babies only sleep that long.

You could also try ChatGPT, I also find that quite useful for solving sleep issues too. Just tell it the exact problem, bedtime wake up etc and it'll give some good ideas.

Do you feed her before her sleeps so you know she's definitely not waking from hunger?

If she's having 14 hours total sleep that might just be all she needs. The naps should start to join up a bit once she drops them.

30 min naps are completely normal. Is she content upon waking? My son had a very similar schedule at that age. He had 4x 30 min naps for a long time. Sometimes he’d nap longer if we contact napped. I did loads of research and concluded it’s just normal for some babies. Was much easier when I stopped fighting it!

Equally, the early night waking. Your baby wants to be close to you. It’s biologically programmed into them. When she’s in the pram in the other room, she knows she’s not near you. That’s why she sleeps longer stretches when you’re in the same room. My only other thought is whether her sleep pressure is high enough? Make her longest waking stretch the one before bed. Lots of apps (including Huckleberry) overestimate how much sleep babies need.

Waking 2 hourly through the night is also normal at her age. In fact, my son sometimes still wakes that regularly at 10 months! So much of sleep is due to temperament and there’s not a lot you can do. I’ve survived it by leaning into it and cosleeping to make life easier. It stressed me out a lot when he was around 4 months old, but now he’s older I’m feeling a lot more relaxed.

Sending hugs! Enjoy your lovely baby.

Thanks for your reply.

No, she’s only happy when she wakes up after the first nap of the day. The rest of the naps she wakes up screaming and seems obviously still tired and it’s hard work keeping her content, I’m counting down until the next nap. I wouldn’t mind it if she were happy in between but she really doesn’t seem it!

She’s awake for 2-2.5 hours before bedtime. Sometimes if the naps time wrong she’s awake for 3-3.5 hours (bath time is fixed as also have a toddler) but it doesn’t make any difference to the number of night time wakings.

I don’t think it’s being in the same room as me that makes her sleep longer. From 3 weeks until 3 months every evening she was in the sling with me (or husband) when I was sat on the sofa, and I’d have to rock her back to sleep between 5-10 times during that time. (Tried holding her in my arms but she woke even more and it was harder to rock her back to sleep). Cosleeping also doesn’t make a difference, I’ve spent lots of nights lying next to her with her just crying in my arms as I couldn’t comfort her.

Oh gosh, I’m not sure I can cope with 2 hour wake ups for months on end, that’s a difficult thought!

Google seems to say 1-3 wake ups is normal for this age, so 5+ is definitely high end or normal.

Ah ok, yes the generic schedules don’t seem helpful as they assume longer naps. That’s a good suggestion though, I put it into chat gpt and it’s done a suggested schedule for 30min naps - it puts 5 of them in as it assumes wake windows should be shorter. I will experiment to see if she’ll do shorter wake windows.

She’s on 2 hours of daytime sleep and if I take out wake ups and feeding time, maybe 10.5 hours at night so 12.5 total. As I said if she were happy most of the time I wouldn’t question it, but she’s not a particularly content baby, I have to work hard to try and stop her from crying. So naturally it makes me wonder if she is getting enough sleep.

Yep mine did 30 min naps until she was over 12 months! Some babies only need that. Her night wakes arent unusual.
my 17 month still wakes twice a night.

I hope it works and you have a more content baby soon! You've got nothing to lose so seems worth a try :)

ensure minimum of 10 hours wake time per day.

Anchor get up time a maximum of 11 hours after bedtime - get up at that time regardless of how the night has gone. Cap day sleep at 2.5 hours per day.

4x30 min naps is normal for babies this age - they are only awake 2-2.5 hours at a time typically and so only build enough sleep pressure for short naps.

if you are tracking her sleep habitually you can see how much she takes on average in a 24h period and this can help inform a wake/nap routine to encourage her to to do longer stretches of sleep at night.

This issue was solved for us by getting our baby on a sleep schedule that suited his sleep needs and teaching him to fall asleep independently at the start of the night. We used the sleep wave method. Still woke for two breastfeeds per night, just didn’t wake every hour anymore because he could link his sleep cycles.

Thanks for your reply.

She is usually on 2 hours of daytime sleep (4x30min naps) and around 11 hours broken sleep at night so I think this fits in with what you suggest.

She can actually put herself to sleep - the last 2 nights I’ve given her a bottle (she has one per day) and put her down awake and she’s fallen asleep within 15 mins without assistance . (But then still woken around 1 hour later).

Night before last she woke up 8 times at night, so almost every hour.

Last night was better - I turned up the volume on the white noise and she did do a 3 hour stretch in the middle of the night. So don’t know if louder white noise is a temporary solution or if it was coincidental!

I think that sounds quite normal (or even better than normal to be honest) for a 4 month old. You can't train them to sleep, it's developmental.

Just to update this thread, baby is now 6 months and still waking every 1/2 hours at night. There has been no improvement at all. Every so often I get lucky and she’ll sleep for 3 hours. So she’s on at least 6 wake ups per night, sometimes up to 10. Still on 30min naps during the day although sometimes I can rock her back to sleep after the 3rd nap to get a longer one. Still not particularly happy.

Is this still normal?

Have you tried "wake to sleep?"

Is she showing any sign of reflux at all? Does she sleep in a car seat (assuming it’s not a lay flat) or being held?

One of mine woke screaming on a regular basis. Didn’t show any other reflux signs but the HV said the scream was classic reflux scream. We tilted her crib slightly (not recommended but we were desperate by that point) and it was like a miracle.

laying flat just made her refluxy and the pain woke her.

it’s an experience lots of people have, but it’s not one that you have to put up with.

In the absence of illness of pain, I would guess she does not have enough sleep pressure.

What is bedtime, wake time and how much total nap time is she having, and what time are naps?

I suspect by assisting a longer nap at the end of the day you are actually making the night more difficult.

Thanks for your replies. This is a typical day:

Wake 7.00
Nap 1 9.00-9.30
Nap 2 11.30-12.00
Nap 3 2-2.30
Nap 4 4.15-4.35
Bedtime 6.45

Or Nap 3 2.30 - 4.20 ( with resettle)

Then 6+ wakes during the night, usually starting around 8.30. Interestingly when I have had a 3 hour stretch it’s been in the middle of the night, say 12-3.

It makes no difference to the night whether she’s on 3 or 4 naps. I’ve also varied the wake window before bed to different times between 2 and 3 hours.

Ive tried resettling for 15 mins without feeding. Usually this doesn’t work, but if it does she wakes up around 30mins later.

And most of the wakes she actually has her eyes closed and looks like she is trying to get herself to sleep but can’t.

She has been back on omeprazole for 2 weeks as I noticed she did seem to be arching her back sometimes, and the back arching has reduced but not the wakes.

I haven’t actually tried tilting the crib so can do that (although she’s getting a bit big to her next to me so will need to move her into her big cot soon)

Also just to add that I put her down awake for bedtime (and naps at home) and sometimes she’ll fall asleep without assistance.

Is this waking her before she is expected to wake up? What would I do? I could do this for naps as she predictably does 30mins but there is no set pattern during the night so I’m not sure when I’d wake

Omeprazole generally takes about 4 weeks before you notice a big difference.
if the tilting works it can be done in a cot with a towel under the mattress.

If it is reflux it would explain feeding helping initially, but then not. More milk can cause more reflux, but the milk soothes the pain in the throat so they want more milk.

It took us until 8 months to sort ours that had reflux, but then they slept much better.

one of the main things if you suspect reflux, which the back arching definitely sounds like, is not to give up and change things again too quickly. It takes time for the omeprazole to work and then time for uncomfortableness to go away. We initially went onto omeprazole at 4 months and then were shifted to something else 3 weeks later when it hadn’t seemed to work. I didn’t realise at that time it takes time to kick in then time for the irritation to heal.

Thanks, yes it did occur to me after so long that some symptoms might be reflux so she is back on omeprazole but unfortunately it hasn’t helped the night wakings.

I don’t do many long car journeys. She won’t sleep for longer than 30mins for naps in my arms either though (even if I start rocking before the 30min is up). It’s also harder to get her to sleep in my arms so I don’t bother with contact naps any more.

Thanks, I know what you mean by the last nap. I’d much rather the second was longer and I do try to rescue that one but the sleep pressure isn’t as much so it rarely works (and on the odd occasion it did made no difference to night time wakes).