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June 2015 Moms
YouAreMySunshine15
member
Baby's Sleep at 4 Months
YouAreMySunshine15
member
Now that our babies are 4 months or close to it, I was wondering how your sleep and nap routines are going!
1. What's your nap schedule looking like?
2. Have you thought about/are you starting sleep training at night?
3. If you've started, what method are you using?
1. What's your nap schedule looking like?
2. Have you thought about/are you starting sleep training at night?
3. If you've started, what method are you using?
Re: Baby's Sleep at 4 Months
2. I think we'll start real sleep training in the next 3-4 weeks. Right now she's transitioning to the crib (first full night in there last night) and we are planning a trip at the end of the month. After we get back, we're planning to use the Ferber method, aka CIO. But we'll do it correctly and gradually. She desperately needs to learn to put herself to sleep. The constant bouncing for 3 hours a night is killing my back, especially as she gets bigger.
We're also pushing her bed time back later, because I read that she is in bed too long and that's why her naps are sucky and she won't fall asleep.
ETA: Actually, I just read the Ferber method shouldn't be started until 5 months. Soo.... I'll be "preparing" for that if we can't figure out how to help her self soothe and put herself to sleep before then!
2. We move on Wednesday and then we will be stationary for a few months. I plan to put LO in his own room and work on better sleep habits then. No "training" unless two weeks of concerted effort go by without sleep improvement.
3. I just recently started having DH console him if LO wakes before 3 hours are up. And I now let LO fuss and make noise, and actually cry, before I pick him up at night. This created a slight improvement over the 2 hour intervals we were previously getting.
LO is 17 weeks / 4 months on Tuesday
Her nighttime is always different. She was sttn from 6-12 weeks and since then she's been getting up once during the night. Past week it's been about 4/5 am but last night was 1:30. I haven't really decided on sleep training yet. She was doing so good for a while so I'm hoping she'll just get back to it. She eats for about 50 mins before bed and is out before I put her down around 8.
ETA she's been sleeping in the crib for about a week. Before that pack n play
2.) he's been sleeping in his crib in his own room since 2 months old. & he sleeps for 12 hours. 8pm-8am though lately I've been putting him to bed at 730 because he seems a bit more tired now, but he still wakes up at 8am
3.) I'm not really sure I've used any really special methods. In fact for a long time I was concerned with how much he slept at night so I ended up discussing it with my pediatrician who said don't be worried and to take it and run. He eats a lot through out the day 6-8oz every two hours... So the peditirician said that since he's eating that much it's okay for him to not be eating at night!
No plans yet although his weight gain has slowed way down so have to keep an eye on it. We are down to six feeds a day by his choosing and he isn't eating enough every feed to really get as much as he should I think. We shall see. His naps range from 30 min to about 1 1/2 hours. Anyone else feel like there's not a lot of time with them now that they are sleeping better!?!
2.) I did baby wise early on lo sleeps from 8-9pm until 5-6am. And has been sleeping close to that since she was 10 weeks old. Ped doc wasn't concerned and said it was awesome for us. She has gone up 50% in weight since she was born and is a good eater.
3.) I'm not opposed to cio. Luckily I don't think we will have to suffer through it. Here is a breakdown of our nightly routine we have done this really since she came home from the hospital. Feeding, Chang diaper with a &d cream Jammies sleep sack arms out. Turn on sleep giraffe on sleep setting read one book than goodnight moon rock for 2-5 minutes down for evening. Lo is good at putting herself to sleep she has slept in her room in a crib since she was 8 weeks. Sometimes she falls asleep earlier and then we just put her in the sleep sack and put her down. Hoping that maybe the schedule we have can help you other ladies our lo really does well with it.
2) I'm just hoping I can get him out of our room and into his crib this week! We've been doing naps in the crib to transition. I am not sure about sleep training. I'm not sure I can do CIO. I guess we'll see how this transition goes.
3) haven't started yet.
She STTN in her crib, has since 10 weeks. If I'm not working she wakes between 430-6, eats, and then sleeps for another 3 hours. She eats around 7p and then goes in her crib awake. Currently one arm swaddled out.
This is all her doing, nothing I can take credit for and I consider myself lucky. She is a thumb sucker so that's helpful too. Always soothes herself asleep for naps with her thumb.
DB doesn't take long naps anymore. Short nap between 8-10 for 20-45 minutes and an afternoon nap anywhere from 1-3 for the same length of time. Occasionally a third nap, and he's usually in bed between 6:30-8:00 pm.
2. Have you thought about/are you starting sleep training at night?
We don't have a need for it currently.
@caitlincunn have you tried a pacifier, or arms out so she can find her hands? I don't give DD a pacifier at night, but do sometimes during naps, and it helps to soothe her to sleep. I take it away once she's out. We also weaned her off of rocking to sleep around 8 weeks. I slowly would put her into her crib more and more awake each time. At night we are able to put her down awake after her last feed and bedtime story, and she's out within 5 minutes. I hope this helps!
LO (15 weeks) naps 3-4 times a day, depending on what time she wakes up in the morning. When she STTN she wakes up around 6am and then will nap 4 times. When she eats MOTN (usually sometime between 1 and 3), she sleeps until around 7-7:30 and then will nap only 3 times that day. Naps tend to be 30-60 minutes (aside from occasional long weekend nap, because I will usually let her sleep on top of me for her midday nap, but I transfer her around the 90 minute mark otherwise she will stay there for 3 hours).
She kind of made her own schedule...most days she will nap around 8am (if she woke up at 6; if she woke up at 7:30 she skips this one), around 10-10:30am, around 1, and around 4. Her bedtime depends on what time her last nap ended. Some days she refuses to go down for her third nap at daycare, or she goes down early and is up by 3:30, so we do bedtime as soon as we get home (otherwise she falls asleep nursing and "naps" until so late that it destroys the bedtime routine). On a normal night, when she takes her usual late afternoon nap that ends around 5, we start the bedtime routine around 6:30 with a bath and she's fully asleep between 7-7:30pm. Though she has a cold right now, so the bedtime routine has been a bit rough (it's hard for her to eat when her nose is stuffy, so she's fussy and generally needs to be rocked upright after eating in order to fall asleep...which makes the subsequent crib transfer more difficult).
I credit daycare with making the transfer from bassinet to crib and her sleep activities so good and easy...ever since she went there, she has been sleeping in the crib no problem, and can easily put herself to sleep in non-ideal situations (in the car, just sitting on my lap, etc) when previously she HAD to be nursed and rocked in the glider in the darkened nursery to nap at all, and if I removed her from my lap she would wake up immediately. She fell asleep last weekend just sitting on my lap at a football game. She does wake during the night but puts herself back to sleep after thrashing around a bit and sticking her thumb in her mouth. If she wants food, she starts with cooing and then gradually will escalate to crying if we don't hear her. If she's not hungry she just goes back to sleep on her own.
I fear the sleep regression, because we have it so good right now. I know it's coming and I'm scared.
We don't use it every time, but when he's having a little trouble falling asleep, it definitely helps.
It's either the 4 month sleep regression or he's just not full enough anymore! I feel like I'm back to the newborn stage again 8-} I'm so confused and want to cry! All your babies sound like they're sleeping so well!
The twins have been sleeping in their cribs since day 2 of coming home. We have had the same routine since then also. We do a bath and bottle then we sleep sack them with arms out. Sometimes they fuss a bit and I have a 15 minute fussing limit until i go back into their room. They will be five months in 2 weeks but since about 3 months they have been sleeping anywhere from 9-12 hours a night. I feel so lucky and pray that you mommas out there get some sleep soon!
DH and I are really laid back and probably won't use any methods. We're more of the "just wing it" type. Like our entire approach for parenting!
My lo is doing 42'minutes! Some things says to wake them up slightly 5-10 mins before they usually wake to try to start a new cycle, also say go in and place hand on their chest in hopes you will prevent the transition from waking them up. Or pick them up and start your soothing routine again. I haven't really tried anything for a few days at a time but sometimes I can rock her back to sleep/nurse her back to sleep. I'll usually watch the monitor and if she wakes up I'll give her a few to see what she is doing and then go in, pick her up and rock her and you'll know in a few minutes if she's going back to sleep or not. We're 16 weeks tomorrow and yesterday she took a almost 3 hr nap and today one nap was an hour. So maybe it gets better? I don't know! I would love 3 separate hour naps or one long nap and a few other short ones but who knows.. It keeps changing!
Naps during the day are totally effed up right now. He went from napping an hour or more after each feeding to barely napping at all (like 20 min) during a feeding 'cycle', to now the past 3 days taking a fairly long nap (an hour or two) mid morning and either catnapping again the rest of the day, or taking another randomly longish nap in the afternoon. I've only barely begun to count on the mid morning nap to be able to nap myself or do some stuff.
She's in her crib at night but still only sleeps 4-6 hours and is up 2 or 3 times at least. We're not to 4 months yet but I'm counting down the days until we can sleep train. We did CIO with DS but he was STTN by now. We might have to try something else with this one.
She's been going to sleep on her own for a while, it's the MOTN we need to work on. We've been able to read to her the last 3 nights without her screaming, too. Since she never escalated to actual crying last night, I'm hopeful...
ETA she is almost 16 weeks.
The good thing is she doesn't really cry, so I'm not as worried about her waking DS. But it can take 45 min of fussing before she falls asleep and I can't fall asleep until she's quiet. But we're moving in the right direction.