Babies: 3 - 6 Months

Help with bedtime

LO just turned 4 months a week ago and has since been IMPOSSIBLE to get to go to sleep at bedtime. She does great with naps and generally sleeps well at night once she goes to sleep.

We've had the same bedtime routine since she was a few weeks old-bath, swaddle arms out, bottle, bed drowsy but awake. We've tried putting her to bed anywhere between 7 and 8:30pm. The past few nights she hasn't gone to sleep until 11pm. We've tried letting her cry in 5 or 10 min intervals, rocking, shhushing. Nothing works. I usually end up feeding her after 3-4 hours of this and then she usually passes out.

We are at our wits end. Is this the 4 month sleep regression? Whenever we go in her room she stops crying and sometimes even smiles at us.

Re: Help with bedtime

  • Yep, could be the 4 month sleep regression. I'd wait it out and hope it passes soon. We are going through it too.

  • Let's hope it's gone soon! I don't know how much more patience I can drum up.
  • Loading the player...
  • Let's hope it's gone soon! I don't know how much more patience I can drum up.

    Sorry to say-- The Wakeful (and other regressions afterward) changed both my kids' sleep for a long time. It is a phase, but you might just have to dig deep for patience & think up a new routine.

    The only thing constant about babies & toddlers is change. Good luck.


    LFAF Summer 2016 Awards:



    Lilypie First Birthday tickers

  • Let's hope it's gone soon! I don't know how much more patience I can drum up.
    Sorry to say-- The Wakeful (and other regressions afterward) changed both my kids' sleep for a long time. It is a phase, but you might just have to dig deep for patience & think up a new routine. The only thing constant about babies & toddlers is change. Good luck.

    So much this.

    And the 4 month regression doesn't actually go away, it signals a complete change in your baby's sleep habits and sleep cycles. Your baby might become a crappy sleeper because of the regression but nothing really changes except your baby has to get used to transitioning through sleep cycles and putting him/herself back to sleep.

  • edited February 2015

    Our LO is 5 1/2 months and we just went through this. He was awake every 30 minutes (sometimes less) all. night. long.

    The only thing that seems to help a bit was the advice that when they cry, pick them  up, but only so long as it takes to get them to stop crying. Then put them down right away. If they cry again pick them up - as soon as they stop put them down. The first night we had to do this maybe 5 times, but the second night, we only had to do it twice, then once, then he was fine if we just rubbed his back a little. He finally got to only waking 2-3 times a night which was about where he was when he was a newborn.

    We tried everything under the sun to get those 2-3 to go back to none (like he was at 3 months), but by the time we said "eff this" and went back to what we were doing for bedtime before the regression, he started sleeping through the night again. Afterwards though, his bedtime has gotten a lot earlier than it was before. He still wakes up once in a while but it's usually because he can't find his pacifier to put it back in his mouth.

    All this insanity lasted for about 3 weeks. It felt like 3 months, but it was only 3 weeks.

     

     

     

  • Oh boy. Sounds like we are in for some fun. Our pedi keeps recommending Ferber but then I read 4 months is too young for it to work.
  • When are your naps? Do you know your babies sleepy cues? Around 4 months, ours started showing sleepy cues a lot earlier so we started putting them to bed earlier. Yes we have a schedule we would like to keep for our sanity but sometimes being too strict with that schedule ended up biting us in the behind (I.e screaming for an hour or two)

    I have also noticed lately that my twins hate being in their bedroom when they aren't ready to sleep. But when they are ready to skeep, that's the only place they want to be lol. It's like they are afraid to miss something!
  • She takes a good morning nap generally from around 9-11:30. The she's usually ready to go back down around 1 or so. Problem is oftentimes I can only get her to nap for an hour then. I always make sure she's never up more than 2 hours and always put her down when she yawns or starts rubbing her eyes. She'll catnap in her swing around 5:30 and then wakes up around 6. Then she's in bed by 7:30. Should bedtime be 5:30???
  • Wow, your naps are great! Jealous! And I don't know the answer to your question. But putting our kids to bed earlier seemed so weird but it totally worked. And even now they will often take a short late nap around 530 or 6. And we will put them to bed at 730 (daylight savings time bumped it back an hour). Maybe that could work for you? Like I said, sometimes the schedule for our kids is not exactly what we want, but once we loosened the reins a bit it on the times was easier for all of us.

    We do the sound machine (to mute the noises I make as I clean up) and a night light star projector in their room. And we just recently gave them stuffed animals to cuddle with. My son loves to hold onto it until he falls asleep. maybe one of those things could help you? Good luck!
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards
"
"