4 Month Baby to Sleep

my doc suggested that by 4 months you should just let the child be and they will learn to fall back to sleep and so that is what I did and it worked within a few days. He also said that a 4 month old is not hungry in the middle of the night and I was breastfeeding. I have read a few sleep books - Weisblut, Ferber and they tend to say the same thing - do not do something that will not be available to the child when they wake eg rock, cuddle,pacifier which often gets lost, sleep beside - they need to form an association with sleep that is available to them in the middle of the night without you eg sucking their own fingers, a little blankie or just closing their eyes and going back to sleep. We all wake intermittently in the night and we go back to sleep - we often don't even remember being awake. This is the skill that baby needs to learn. Enjoy.

it sounds like she is hungry. my son woke at least once a night to eat until he was almost 8 months old. i also wouldn't dreamfeed her. i would feed her at 8, put her to bed and feed her when she wakes up at 3 and see how it goes. dreamfeeding in my opinion disrupts their sleep cycle and doesn't teach them how to stay asleep if they're being somewhat roused to eat when they are obviously not wanting to eat since they are fast asleep

I know you are trying to get your baby to sleep through the night without feeding her, but I think the reason she keeps waking you up is because she is hungry. It's not until 8 months that they are capable of sleeping all night without eating. That is when their brains and digestive systems are developed enough to stay full through the night. Up until then, if she wakes up, you should assume it's because she is hungry and feed her. I am guessing that if you feed her at 3am when she wakes up for the first time, she'll sleep again until the morning. Both you and baby will be much happier and more well rested.

Good luck!

I think what Nora wrote it incorrect. A 4 month old baby is crying for a reason and is too young to "let her cry it out". She is probably hungry especially if you are breastfeeding. My 11 month old still wakes 1-2 times at night to eat and she is on lots of solids! Are you still swaddling her? She apparently likes the security of your arms and you might be able to achieve that with swaddling.

The pacifier is not evil.... Give it back to her for night time and naps, she's not going to go to college with it! People are so paranoid about it. Your baby is only 4 months old and needs comfort.

This was a tricky age to navigate sleep for our daughters. We used "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," by Dr. Marc Weissbluth and it worked like a charm for both.
Good luck.

this is going to sound mean, cruel and hard - but let her cry when she wakes up. You aren't going to feed her, she is doing it every night so it's a habit. To break the habit she just needs to learn that if it's dark out you will not be coming to her crib.

Also you might want to move her bedtime up a half hour, see if that works. There may be some noise in the house or outside that is causing her to wake (a neighbor leaving for work or a barking dog or a train whistle) so put a fan on in her room and music on continous play. That may be all you need. Does the heat kick on at that time? You may have to adjust the thermostat - I found my kids woke when the house got warmer in the morning cause the heat was going on. Changed the setting so it didn't kick on to a warmer temp until later and they were fine again. Does her head get cold? You may need to put a hat on her at night, both my girls needed one in the winter to sleep well.

I'm not sure, but if you're breastfeeding (I did, so it's what I know) you need to feed her at night. Not after like 6 months when they can sit up on their own and you start some simple solids is it as necessary as it is now.
They will still wake up during the night for at least another year! How long she stays awake is another thing, but my 20 month old still wakes up to be put back to sleep 2x a night. It has to do with their dream cycles...

good luck!

Not sure if you're feeding her when she gets up at 3am. She might be hungry, and that's why she keeps getting up after that. You could try feeding her then and see if that helps her stay asleep the rest of the night.

J. Sassack
Founder and Contributor
www.UrbanSuburbanFamily.squarespace.com

Check out this book- http://www.amazon.com/Sleepeasy-Solution-Exhausted-Parent.... I wish I had found it sooner than I did, my son would have slept better at night. She talks a lot about dream feeding- but keeping track of when the baby usually wakes up, and dreamfeeding them an hour before they would normally wake to feed, so as to encourage them to keep sleeping. Maybe if you catch her before she cries and is hungry, you can coax her into sleeping longer. Either way, she sounds like she's doing pretty well for a 4 month old!

Good luck!
T.
www.ReadandGrow.com