4 month wakeful?

kmvw · October 2013

My LO will be four months next week. She used to sleep very well, 8-9 stretches, only getting up once a night to feed. Starting last week, her sleeping has gotten much worse, getting up every two hours, is this the dreaded four month wakeful? What tips or tricks can I use to help her get more sleep? She is mostly bf but we do supplement with one to two bottles of formula because she is a big eater and I cannot keep up with her no matter what I try. Thanks for any suggestions, zombie mom!

mattandlora · October 2013

Yep. That's the 4 month wakeful. My LO is going to be 5 months next week and his sleep is still messed up. He went from waking up once at night (before the wakeful period), to waking up every 2-3 hours (at its worst). Now he is up twice at night. His wakeful period started about a week shy of turning 4 months. His naps are still terrible. He fights them, then doesn't stay asleep long. I don't have any advice for you, unfortunately, except to hang in there! We started solids and hoped it would help him sleep better. No. But he likes the experience.

Murphie82 · October 2013

That sounds like the 4 month wakeful to me. My LO started a few days ago. I found the article linked below really interesting...

https://kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/4mo-sleep/

Not sure how much truth there is to it, but I EP and have found the 4 month wakeful period to be fairly easy so far. LO wakes up twice a night to eat and that's it. I'm hoping we continue that way, but we still have time for things to spiral.

emikat · October 2013

Thank you for mentioning this. I think my LO has hit it and I had no idea this was something that usually occurs. I'll be less worried and more patient now.

michellersayer · October 2013

I never heard of the 4 month wakeful until I started reading about it on here lately.. My son never had that. I thank god he slept 12 hours straight every night starting 3 months. I'm sure I won't get that lucky with my daughter.. !

BubblyDevil · November 2013

So according to the article, bottle fed babies don't go through this?

kmvw · November 2013

There also is a wonder week at 17-19 weeks. Could be that as well for anyone else that is going though this.

Murphie82 · November 2013

BubblyDevil said:

So according to the article, bottle fed babies don't go through this?

I don't know if that's the case for everyone but found the article interesting. I'd be interested to hear from other bottle feeding moms what their experience has been.

I bottle feed, and although we are going through the major fussy period that comes with the fourth leap, we aren't experiencing wakefulness all that badly. He's more difficult to put down to sleep some nights, and he wakes up twice a night, but that was pretty typical for him prior to the fourth leap.

Again, there's still time for the wakefulness thing to completely spiral out of control since my LO is not even four months yet. So it's hard to say how it will turn out as of right now.

KaitieT · November 2013

Murphie82 said:

BubblyDevil said:

So according to the article, bottle fed babies don't go through this?
I don't know if that's the case for everyone but found the article interesting. I'd be interested to hear from other bottle feeding moms what their experience has been.

I bottle feed, and although we are going through the major fussy period that comes with the fourth leap, we aren't experiencing wakefulness all that badly. He's more difficult to put down to sleep some nights, and he wakes up twice a night, but that was pretty typical for him prior to the fourth leap.

Again, there's still time for the wakefulness thing to completely spiral out of control since my LO is not even four months yet. So it's hard to say how it will turn out as of right now.

We are at about 18.5w with our bottle fed LO and we have definitely had some rough nights lately. She has been really hard to get down and stay down for naps and wakes about every 2 hours at night. We have also gone for one feeding a night to 2. Last night we were finally back to our normal so I'm hoping it's here to stay. It's been a rough couple of weeks.

Murphie82 · November 2013

KaitieT said:

Murphie82 said:

BubblyDevil said:

So according to the article, bottle fed babies don't go through this?
I don't know if that's the case for everyone but found the article interesting. I'd be interested to hear from other bottle feeding moms what their experience has been.

I bottle feed, and although we are going through the major fussy period that comes with the fourth leap, we aren't experiencing wakefulness all that badly. He's more difficult to put down to sleep some nights, and he wakes up twice a night, but that was pretty typical for him prior to the fourth leap.

Again, there's still time for the wakefulness thing to completely spiral out of control since my LO is not even four months yet. So it's hard to say how it will turn out as of right now.

We are at about 18.5w with our bottle fed LO and we have definitely had some rough nights lately. She has been really hard to get down and stay down for naps and wakes about every 2 hours at night. We have also gone for one feeding a night to 2. Last night we were finally back to our normal so I'm hoping it's here to stay. It's been a rough couple of weeks.

Fingers crossed for you.
[-O<

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