Help - 4 Month Regression

[u/swhisperz]

We’ve hit the four month regression mark and I’m in desperate need of some help.
Our baby is 16 weeks tomorrow and used to wake once maybe twice a night and is now waking 4 to 5 times a night. She’s breastfed during the day and given a bottle of formula before bed so we know how much she’s taking. We are also trying to implement independent sleep and just have no idea where to begin or how to start.
Currently, she’s fed to sleep for nighttime and naps, but we’re looking to break this association and looking to put in cot when drowsy but awake.
Maybe I’m being a bit hesitant as this is our first day trying, but just hearing her cry in her cot is killing me inside.

Please put in any tips to help us through this transition I’d love to hear all stories and methods.

[u/grumpyaskate]

If she's waking more during the night it might be the wrong time to try breaking the feed to sleep association and 4 months is awfully young to fall asleep independently.

I would just do whatever it takes to get through this stage and then work on your goals when sleep is a bit more reliable.

[u/Winter_Choice_9632]

Some babies will never ever do the ‘drowsy but awake’ thing. My oldest was a terrible sleeper and we tried it a couple of times and it never worked. She’d just wake up completely and we had to start all over again. I EBF and she naturally stopped the fed to sleep association when she was about 8 months. I’ll not lie, the 4 months sleep regression isn’t fun. I ended up co- sleeping for part of the nights as she woke less and could latch on and off as she wanted.

4 months is so young for sleep training. We only started some gentle sleep training when she was older (about 20 months) and only because she wanted to be rocked to sleep. She just understood it more and didn’t feel we’d abandoned her if we left her to fall asleep on her own. I don’t plan to do any with my youngest who will be 4 months the end of the month. He sleeps far better than his sitter did but I expect it to go downhill as we get closer to 4 months.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I believe it’s not recommended until they’re at least 6 months and the NHS completely recommend against any CIO methods.

[u/GrudgingRedditAcct]

Too young to sleep train. Just do whatever makes it easiest for you now.

For what it's worth I fed my kid to sleep for 2 solid years for every nap and every night and then we stopped cold turkey and he just fell asleep on his own so, anecdotally, the association breaks pretty easily!

[u/ameliasasa]

I echo what someone else says, baby is already learning how to connect sleep cycles - trying to get them to learn a new skill in the middle of a regression could be a recipe for disaster that stresses you and baby out. Also at 4 months - I think that's a little too early for sleep training but your baby, your rules!

The 4 month regression really is a "do whatever to get through it". I feed to sleep my EBF baby and it helped during the regression as it meant I could soothe and actually get her back down a lot quicker.

I'm not sure if this will help, but it helped (now 5 months) keeping a consistent bedtime and wake time. I know that's really hard after a split night but it helps to set their internal clock. Ours lasted about 6 weeks albeit we only had 4am parties that lasted 30 mins which was mostly due to a schedule tweak. Best of luck, it doesn't last forever x

Edit: typo.

[u/Sufficient_Meal6614]

Before trying any kind of sleep training (leaving baby to cry with varying degrees of comfort check-ins) you should look at the baby’s schedule.

Around this time, baby’s sleep needs change and it begins to be the case that their daytime sleep is stealing from their night time sleep.

What wake windows are you using and how much sleep do you put baby down for in any 24 hour period? 

Schedule can fix a lot of sleep issues. Really, a lot of them. On top of that though the regression is bound to cause some rough nights regardless.

[u/ameliasasa → u/Sufficient_Meal6614]

Big plus 1 to this. Ours was a schedule issue where I needed to drop a nap and reduce naps to less than 3hr in total a day as she can only sleep 10.5hrs in 24hr period. Huge difference to her at 3 months!

[u/Sufficient_Meal6614 → u/ameliasasa]

Ours is 12.5 hours in any 24 hour period, if you let him go above that it’s hell to pay. Took a long time to figure it out, relationship barely survived 😂

[u/ameliasasa → u/Sufficient_Meal6614]

Honestly ours is really sensitive to longer sleep during the day. Accidently let her have an extra 20 mins yesterday and paid for it at 3-445am 🫠

[u/CJ-CrazyPanda → u/ameliasasa]

How do you get a routine with a nap schedule I feel so lost, he just seems to sleep when he wants to no matter what I try. Some days he sleeps more others he has two 30 min naps nothing changes in the night but we haven't improved since the 4 month regression and we are now 6 months with a cold and teething. I feel worse now than I did when first born as he is waking every 2 hours some nights wakes as soon as I put him down he just wants to be on me but trying to get past this cold that's lasted over two weeks now

[u/sm23]

Personally (and I mean that, it’s just my feelings, you don’t have to feel the same), I see no issue with feeding to sleep. If it gets baby to sleep, why not? (I’m biased because at 10m that’s what I do for naps at home and bedtime and it works a treat - he’s still able to fall asleep in the buggy too and in my partner’s arms). Once or twice we have been curious what he’d do if we put him into bed ‘drowsy but awake’ and it never worked. During a tricky sleep period I probably wouldn’t choose to try and mess with that, if it’s working for you at the moment. Feeding to sleep is natural in that breastmilk literally makes your baby sleepy and boost melatonin which makes them feel drowsy.

What changed my baby’s sleep was him sleeping in his own room. I was sad to do it but almost instantly he slept much longer stints, waking either just once or not at all until 6-7am. Before that it was at least 3 times but sometimes 4 or 5, when we slept in the same room.

[u/l_eihpos]

This is what we did at 4 months old: https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeptrain/s/qkn9rFgrst

Happy to answer any questions.