4.5 month old waking every 1.5 hours at night

[Olihvia's Mommy]

HELP!! My 4.5 month old is waking every 1.5 hours and can't get back to sleep unless I feed her. I know she isn't hungry that often.

She won't go to sleep unless I pick her up and feed her. I'm not sure what to do.

During the day she naps every 1.5 hours for 45 mins. The longest she's ever napped is 1.5 hours but that only happened a couple of times.

I put her to bed after a routine of bath, nurse and bed at 7:30 or so each night. I usually start her bath at 7. She will sleep until about 10:30 or 11 and so the night waking begins, every 1.5 hours on the dot almost.

During the day I put her down for her naps fully awake all the time. Sometimes she'll fuss, sometimes not. If she fusses it's usually during the afternoon naps.

She wakes up around 7 has a nap at 9 then again at 11:30 or 12, 2or 2:30, then again around 430-5.

So 4 naps each 45 mins long every 1.5 hours.

How do I stop the night waking? Any suggestions?

[Katet]

Given the time she is waking is equal to her day cycles I would almost bet the problem is due to the 45min naps, if you are putting her down awake, she knows how to get to sleep, she just doesn't have the skills to get through to a new sleep cycle when she wakes from it.

Given her age, during the day, if you can get her to sleep 1.5-2 hours & feed every 4 hours, you will most probably be well on the way to fixing the night waking problem.

Many babies who are 45min nappers are also night wakers as they have not developed skills to "fall back to sleep" & join more than one sleep cycle together.

There is a great post on the naps forum about extending naps, I would have a look at that & see if you can follow it to extend the 45min naps. Once you get that happening you should then be able to see some improvement on the night wakings

[Olihvia's Mommy]

Thanks so much for the input. That makes sense totally. I will definately look into that.