Author Topic: 4 month sleep regression?  (Read 1854 times)

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Offline Stephnaic

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4 month sleep regression?
« on: August 09, 2017, 17:26:50 pm »

Hi there 
So my now 4 month old boy is really struggling with bedtime. We  have been on a 4 hour EASY for a few weeks now and he is doing great some short 1 hour day naps but most times can get 1 and half to 2 hours in the morning naps. Mid day naps always seem to be short. When we start his bedtime routine around 7/730, I BF him right before I put him down as I don't do a dream feed and cluster feed him in the evening instead. However he falls asleep at the breast I hold him upright for a few minutes then settle him in his crib at that point and he remains fast asleep and sometimes sucks his thumb to self soothe, about 30 min later the last few nights he wakes up crying and won't self soothe. He is great at self soothing when put down for day naps and throughput the night ( he sleeps through the night) but he just won't settle without my help after his bedtime and has been eventually going to bed very late around 10pm due to this. Last few nights i have gone in about 3 times after i put him to bed to help him settle.What is happening and what can I do. I find he's getting use to me coming in and helping him sleep at this time, when before he would self soothe and fall asleep on his own. It's been a challenging week is this the 4 month sleep regression? Our 4 hour EASY looks something like this 

E 715 wakes up happy playing in crib  BF 15min 
A 730-840
S 845 today woke up at 940 which is unusual as this is usually his best nap and can sleep a full 2 hours
 Tried to help him back to bed with a paci and cuddle worked for maybe another 10 min 

E 1100 bottle feed around 180 cc formula I pump at this time 
A 1130-1235
S 1240 these are usually one hour naps but today he got up at 125 and was crying. I left him for 15 min no luck so I went him and BF him and he fell asleep by 2 and slept until 3pm 

E 300 BF 15 min 
A 315-445 
S 450-540

E 545  EBN 180cc 
A 615- 740 bedtime routine 
E 750 asleep at the breast by 8pm held up to burp and remained sleeping held for 7 min then settled in crib asleep 

Woke at 830. Left for 15 min  did not settle went in and burped and BF for about 5 min fell asleep again held for 5 min then in crib at this point he tried sucking his thumb when I placed him own but 15 min later still did not settle went in again at 915 to settle had another burp then BF again until 923 held, him until 930 and settled him in his crib he startled a  bit and put his thumb in his mouth and fell back asleep but woke up again the minute I got down stairs left him and he was fussing around and then eventually fell asleep by 950 on his own( he's awake a long time from his CN up until he finally falls asleep which is what concerns me. Shush pat and PU/PD doesn't work on him as he gets too frustrated and cries hysterically. I'm unsure what to do I don't want this to become a habit that will be hard to break down the road? 

Please help 





Offline creations

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Re: 4 month sleep regression?
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2017, 17:46:54 pm »
Hi there
it sounds like he is reliant on the feed to sleep prop at BT.  Really the best way to avoid this is to stop feeding to sleep and help him learn to self sooth at BT - even though he can do this at nap time bebabies build habits per sleep so the habit for nap and the habit for BT can be different.
What you could do, when you put him down is tell him quite loudly that you are putting him down and it is time to sleep. This may help and you could try it first for a few nights. Sometimes LOs get very unsettled when they rouse from sleep and suddenly discover things are not as they were when they went to sleep, which means he is a bit surprised to fall asleep on the breast or in arms and then to find himself in the cot and with you gone which he didn't know was happening. Because of the surprise he brings himself fully awake and cries out for attention to ensure he is safe.  By that time he's a bit agitated and hard to get back to sleep.

If telling him "I'm going to put you down in your bed now, it's night time, go to sleep, call if you need me, night night" for a few nights doesn't help then I'd go a step further and make sure you put him down awake instead of asleep. It will be a bit unsettled for a few days but then it's unsettled the way things are so it can't really get much worse can it?

BT is looking a bit late too judging by the other A times.  It could be that he needs a slightly longer A before his naps (if you keep getting the shorter nap try increasing towards 2hrs) but it's perhaps too long before BT so maybe try the WD and sleep earlier to not allow the last A time to go beyond 2hrs (and maybe even 1hr 45).

hope this helps


Offline Stephnaic

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Re: 4 month sleep regression?
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2017, 20:35:11 pm »
OK thank you I will try that. And is this the 4 month sleep regression  and is it OK for him to only have two 1 hour naps and a 45 min nap. Could you please show me a 4 hour EASY on how it would look with these short naps that's also something I'm struggling with. I'm worried he's not getting enough sleep.

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Re: 4 month sleep regression?
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2017, 07:15:26 am »
At 4 month you'd be looking at two good length naps.  You said the first nap was often 2hrs.  You can work on extending the second nap to make it longer.  I would go straight in when he wakes to resettle him or do a W2S on that second nap to try to extend it.

The 4 month regression often shows as a whole string of 45 min naps through the day - it really depends on the individual though and very often there are other factors which may or may not be apparent at the time.

I'm worried he's not getting enough sleep.
Try not to worry. There are things you can do to try to help him get a better sleep (such as appropriate A time, sleep training, resettling at wake ups) but worrying doesn't help, you do what you can x

Here's a link to the W2S FAQ, the whole FAQ is helpful but particularly I suggest naps option 1 to help your LO take longer naps.
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=223809.0