Shouldn't My 4 Month Be Sleeping Through the Night...

Start him on baby food in the evening and he will sleep longer. I never went by what the Doctors said to wait till they are 6 to 8 months I don't know what baby they had that did that.

Hi! I know that you are getting some great advice here! I know that routine is key. Keep doing everything that you are doing but do it later! My oldest had her days and nights mixed up. I hardly slept. Anyway... I started putting her to bed later. Then after 2-3 nights say at 11, I moved it back to 10:30 and did that until we had her in bed at 8:30. I was lucky with my 2nd. He slept through at 2 months but my 3rd gave me a run for my money as well. She didn't like the crib and then when I finally got her to sleep through the night, hubby came back from deployment and we had to start all over again.

Best of luck to you! I hope that all the advice you get helps.

I know the second family feeling. My oldest is 18 going to college and my youngest is 16 the mommy of my grandbaby that im raising and she only 17 months. But we didnt want to start introducing too many foods to fast so we just did the bland food first. At about 6 months.
As for the bath I give me a warm bath just before bed time and she is out. Its a blessing.

Most babies don't sleep through the night at 4 months, regardless of what you feed them. Wait until he's about 5-6 months. Then, if his weight/health is normal, he won't 'need' to eat at night and you'll be able to wean him off the habit. (Think of it as weaning yourself off a night-time drink-of-water habit). Breastfeeding/formula/cereal--none of that should make any difference at 4 months.

Pediatricians recommend solids begin between 4-6 months, so you're on track there!

Every child is different and your son just may not be ready to sleep through the night yet but your best bet is a routine. My lil boy is just under four months and just started sleeping 8-9 hours a night. Each night at 8:30 he get's half his bottle then a lavender bath, he get's his jammies on and then the rest of his bottle, he falls right to sleep with no problem. You just have to work out the best routine for your baby.

i am L. staioned with my husband in lakenheath england , i just had a girl who is now three monthes old , she is eating ceral and fruits , wci tell me that four months is the ideal time , i just started her earlier becuase she is eating every two hours . mabye not let him take a nap after six pm and lay him down at nine . that's what i do i do feed her creal at six with us , and she still cries for about 15 min. then sleeps till about six am . other than that sorry some babies just won't sleep through the night yet my first son was like that he is now four years old and still gets up at least once :( ... well good luck and i bet you can't wait to be home i know i can't we've got two and a half years left:(

L.,

My name is T. and I have a 17 month old daughter named Patricia. Patricia didn't really start sleeping for more than 4 hours at a time until about 5 months old. Even though we started her on cereal at 4 months old she was still only sleeping about 3 hours or so at a time..... so I was up alot through the night. But what I didn't know when she was 4 months old was to try putting cereal in her milk bottle right before bed. I didn't get this awesome advice until she was 5 months old! Anyway, it was MAGIC!!! She started sleeping approximately 5 hours or so at a time and then eventually at 7 months old she was sleeping 8-9 hours straight through. I hope this helps some and good luck to ya!
T.

Hello! My name is Julianna and I am also stationed in Turkey. My friend, Sarah, just introduced me to Mamasource a few weeks ago. Anyway, my little daughter (now 20 months) didn't sleep through the night until 7 months. At four months old, I also gave her rice cereal with milk (breast milk for a while, and then just water I think), but it didn't seem to help her sleep longer. At night, she would usually fall asleep after I only fed her from one side (nursing), and then she would wake up for another feeding in the middle of the night. She finally started sleeping longer when I fed her from both sides. Finally, at about ten months (when my doctor assured me that I could just let her cry in the night and that she really did NOT need the extra calories...) that I ignored her cries (sometimes it was over twenty to thirty minutes). I think that that only lasted for three nights and then...hooray--an eight hour, uninterrupted sleep! I know that every child is different, but that is my story. I probably could have tried to let her cry it out earlier (seven months, maybe), but I was too paranoid that she had some need that I was not meeting (like hunger or diaper change, a foot caught in the crib, etc.). Hope this helps-

Hi L.,
every child is different, my 2 girls slept through the night at 2 months, but my son, just in the past 5 months he has. My only suggestion is, if you have him on a schedule,(i.e.bath, bed time story), keep him on it and you'll that in no time he'll start sleeping through the night all on his own...i know it's hard, after finally he was sleeping through the night, my 2 y/o started being awake all night!! Best of luck to you & your fam.
Val

HI L.,
Although my 2 children are much older then yours I can still remember that age none the less. My daughter went through that stage. As far as the "Introducing baby-food", my opinion & what I did in fact do with both of my children, was introduce babyfood at a very young age. When I felt it was time. NOT when the books said it was time or the doctors or anybody else for that matter. I just went on instinct. And low & behold, both of them loved what I gave them. Just real easy stuff on there little new systems of course (like banana's & or other fruits etc...)
As far as sleeping through the night. here's my suggestion for that as well. Again it's what I did, & it worked for me very well! I started off feeding them the cereal out of a bottle, in what I called a cereal bottle. You have to basically ruin a couple of nipples to do this. By cutting an X or a + on the tip of the nipple. Then, make a cereal bottle, by mixing in part cereal part water & part formula, shake well. Make sure that it's not to thin, otherwise the baby will choke, & frankly you don't want that. If you heat this up just a tad (the bottle you give the baby right before bedtime that is) they are pretty much guaranteed to sleep for that 5-7 hour block. Mine sure did.
If you need any other help please don't hesitate to ask or email me, I will be glad to help.
Good Luck
N.

I have two children, ages 3 yrs. and 18 months. Neither one of them slept through the night until about 9 months. I breastfed both for 12 months and didn't start solid food until 6 months.

All kids do this at different rates, my first daughter slept through the night at 3 months and my second was 8 months. She still gets up around 6 AM to crawl into bed with me. If you start them early though, you can let them cry through one of their normal feedings in the middle of the night. I had to do this with my 2nd daughter to get her to sleep longer. She was just so used to getting up and nursing to go back to sleep that she kept doing it. My husband and I finally decided to let her cry through one of these sessions and after a couple nights she stopped waking up for that extra nursing session. But just remember that each child has their own schedule and if you don't feel comfortable skipping a feeding at night, don't do it unil he' a litle older, but I think 6t months is usually the "norm" as far as sleeping through the night is concerned.

HTH

N.

Hey L.,
Im in Turkey as well.
I have to say some babies just are NOT sleepers!!
Jorja never slept through the night until she was about a year old. If I remember correctly they say you can start the baby food at around 6 months.

I have heard that if you give ceral right before bed it can help keep them full. Also if your nursing try to pump and give the nighttime feeding from a bottle since they can eat it a bit faster this way. With nursing by the time your finished feeding them there already digesting the milk.

THe only other thing i can reccomend it ROUTINE. IT helped us out a bunch. we give her a bath then off to bed.

She is almost 2 now and still wakes at night but CO-sleeping helped a TON!!
I know its something

Good luck!!

A.

www.jjandme.etsy.com

Hi,

I started my son on baby food at 4 months. We live in Germany and on the economy they have solid foods starting at 4 months. My son is now six months and we have no problems with allergies. I tried him on American baby foods and he did not like it. He loves the German food. It is pureed vegetables. You can make it your self. It is healthier and you don't introduce perservates to your little one.

As for the sleeping through the night. We interrupted his nap time and kept him up. At first he was cranky but we literally did a song and dance to keep him up. Then around 8:30pm we gave him a quick bath and then feed him a bottle. I turn off the lights and I would feed him. We are still doing this and he knows. When it is 8:15pm he gets restless and by 8:45pm he is out. He sleeps for about 5-6 hours, feeds and then sleeps for about 4 more. He would sleep longer but we are up by then and it is time for him to go to the sitter.

Hope this helps.

My suggestion is that you stop the cereal for awhile,it may be what is keeping him awake. My son was 10lbs 10oz and 23in at birth and he came out hungry and at 15 years old is still always hungry. I am just guessing that that is the reason you started him on cereal. I tried that once and my pediatrician (a very well known and authored Dr. )told me absolutely not to do that. He told me that it was just too harsh for his digestion (even though it is supposed to be easy) at this age and to wait for the cereal until he was at least nine months. As far as baby food, you should do veggies at first and only one at a time until he gets used to it (a week or two). My son barely slept for the first year of his life. We finally discovered that if we let him sleep too much during the day then he wouldn't sleep at night. Too much for him was about 45 minutes. Also after several sleepless months, the Dr told us to disrupt his sleep habits for him. If he wakes up at 11:00 , then wake him up 20 minutes earlier. Sure enough he finally started to sleep through the night about a month after we tried this. My son still only sleeps about 5-6 hours a night after all these y.ears

Are you breastfeeding? If so, he will wake up more often. My son, also 4 months, gets a bath, eats (bottle fed), and goes to bed. Most nights he sleeps until 8 am (going to bed about 930). There are some nights that he wakes up about 2 am eats and goes right back to bed, I believe those nights he is going through a growth spurt.

I would talk to your doctor about it. I found that if I gave my son cereal before going to bed he woke up because he didn't eat all of his formula before bed.

Are you BFing or is your dc on formula?? My DS, now 15 months, did not sleep through the night until he weaned -- which he did on his own at 7 months. Formula carried him through the night much better than my milk did... really he went from waking 2-3 times to nurse to sleeping 10 hours!

It's a really tough decision if you are a BFing mom and by no means am I advocating weaning! I really wanted to BF past DS's 1st birthday, but he wasn't interested after his first bottle. I had a really hard time adjusting to it and didn't really become "OK" with the idea until I had caught up on some sleep.

Anywho... if your DC is already on formula... maybe offer the cereal closer to bedtime? I had DS on baby food at around 4 1/2 months. He was just HUNGRY! He'd get cereal for breakfast and dinner and a Stage 1 veggie for lunch... by 5 months he had a veggie AND cereal for dinner. He was also gumming Graham Crackers for a snack.

Hang in there! I know how hard it is not to sleep. My DS still doesn't sleep if he is teething or in a growth spurt - which seems like every other week right now. I keep thinking we're good, then there's a week that 3am is playtime! You'll get through this.

Hi, I know how tough those sleepless nights can be! I have an 8 and 4 year old. A friend recommended a book that really helped us "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". I tried cereal as well and it didn't help with sleeping at all. A doctor later told me that introducing solids before 6 mths can (but doesn't always) lead to food allergies. Sure enough, both my boys have had food allergies. They've since 'outgrown' them however. Anyway, try the book. It was a life saver for us.