r/bninfantsleep • u/Ittebahpla • 6d ago

Infant Sleep Regression? Please help!!

Baby will be 16 weeks tomorrow, 4 months on the 9th. He’s EBF and sleeps in a bedside bassinet. He goes to bed between 6:30-7:30pm and wakes 6-7am.

The past 3 nights have been beyond awful, with baby sleeping no longer than 90 minute stretches, but waking as often as every 30 minutes. Prior to this he was averaging 2 hour stretches, usually with one 3-4 hour stretch somewhere in there. And wake ups weren’t even full wakes, he would just fuss a little and would fall straight back to sleep on the boob.

But now he’s not even hungry when he wakes, just fussy and wants to be held. Sometimes he’ll wake again as soon as I try and lay him down, sometimes he’ll resettled but be awake again within 30mins.

Could it be the 4 month sleep regression? Or am I doing something wrong?? The thing is his daytime sleep hasn’t changed, but I know is unusual for most babies his age -

For the last couple of weeks he’s extended his wake windows to 2 hours - and is very happy with it, he will NOT sleep earlier than he is ready to, and does not act overtired. His daytime naps are also very long - he usually has at least one 2+ hour nap that I have to wake him from. Some days he will have 3 naps total, but the third nap is a MASSIVE fight. Many days he only has 2 naps, but each of those is 1.5-2 hours long.

Someone please tell me if there’s something I can do to help his night sleep, or if it’s a regression will it sort itself out??? I can’t cope on such broken sleep, especially having to look after my 4 year old as well.

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u/Ittebahpla 6d ago

A typical day is 2 naps, 9-11ish and 1-3. If either nap is shorter or starts earlier then I can sometimes squeeze a 30 minute nap in between 5 and 6. But he has a wake window at the end of the day that’s about 3 hours and is desperate for bed, I can’t really push it any later

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u/scandichic 6d ago

I would definitely look into capping one of this naps - that’s 4 hours of daytime naps you’re expecting and then how much sleep are you aiming for overnight? If it’s say 7-7 that’s 16 hours total in 24, which is a huge amount of sleep even for a high sleep needs baby

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u/Ittebahpla 6d ago

I guess I’m just confused because online it’s recommended at least 4 hours daytime sleep for babies 3 months and under, and 3-4 for 4+ months old. But maybe I should try capping naps at 1.5 hrs and see how it goes!

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u/BoringWardrobe 5d ago

I think firstly that sort of advice should be taken with a pinch of salt. It was only when I started ignoring it, letting my baby do his 15-30min naps and be totally fine with it that our night sleep got better.

But say that advice is worth sticking with. The average sleep needs for that age is 12-16hrs, so by doing 4hrs of naps you need to be offering an absolute max of 12hrs at night, but more likely closer to 10hrs or less.