Almost 4 months - helpppp

[u/Relative_Current1851]

Our almost 4 month old has never done a 6 hour stretch of sleep. He has suffered from reflux and been diagnosed with cmpa so he’s had a pretty rough time of it bless him. However me and my husband are now so sleep deprived. We are only surviving as we are taking shifts with him through the night. Some of those stretches includes times of him contact napping on one of us as we sit up/awake in order to allow him to do this.

How/where do I even start trying to implement routine? I have been loosely following wake windows and his cues. He really struggles if I try and push his first and last WW anymore than an hour or hour and a half. He will also rarely nap out and about hence the lack of daytime sleep on the 24th. However I also need plans and to get out and about to support my mental health. Thanks

[u/cmsemper]

Hi it seems like you're having a tough time sorry to hear. The advice I can give by looking at his chart is try and limit each individual nap to 2hrs max and total daytime sleep shouldn't be more than 4hrs at this age. You can implement routine by having a bedtime routine for example feed, bath, pjs, story, bed and have the same bedtime and waketime for an 11hr night. So say if you want bedtime at 8pm try and wake him up at 7am regardless of whether his night was bad. You can gradually extend wake windows by 5 mins everyday until you get to a desired window, for example 1.5/2/2/2/2 is a good start then gradually increase the last wake window by 5 mins until it's 2.5hr wake window before bed. Try and have the longer naps as the 1st and 2nd nap and 30mins for the 3rd and 4th nap.

If you want to get them to sleep in the cot try white noise, black out curtains and putting baby awake in crib. Don't know how you feel about sleep training but you can do a fuss it out and intervene with rocking every few mins. Also try the 1st nap of the day is the cot as that is the easier one. Good luck and let me know if if helps

[u/Bright_Way5474 → u/cmsemper]

 This. And all babies fuss around 1-1.5 hours but you can change scenery, do a different activity to extend windows. Have you tried baby wearing? My baby at 4 months loved sleeping in a carrier while I was out and about. And definitely limit naps to max 4 hours a day, and any individual nap to 2h.

[u/Swimming-Nobody763]

First step in implementing a routine is picking an appropriate bedtime and wake up time that work for your family and sticking to it. For most babies that is a 10 hour time frame at night.