4month old not sleeping

King Mallie

Hi everyone

Could anyone help me with my four month old son who has now started to wake a lot during the night. He goes to bed at 8pm most nites was sleeping till 5am but now he wakes about 3 times a night and finds it very hard to get back to sleep. Unfortunately my wife has him in the habit of sleeping beside her in the bed when he used to wake but even now that does not seem to settle him. we are doing combination feeding but he is 90per cent on bottles now. He also doesnt sleep much during the day. Were all wrecked. All suggestions welcome.

January

Would he be hungry? How about solid food? Or teething??

Grawns

Most 4 month old don't sleep through the night. You could try waking him for a feed around 11 or 12 whenever you are going to bed (called a dream feed). If he's mainly on bottles you can take turns on this feed.

King Mallie

Thanks for your suggestion but we check tried and checked both suggestions to no avail.
Hopefully he will improve with time. But thanks anyway.
Keep the suggestions coming.:)

January

Sure babies are not meant to sleep through the night anyway it's only a few of us lucky ones that get the ones that do haha!

Is he cold? It's starting to get into the colder months now and I noticed my little one waking a bit more and we just started switching the heating on for an hour or so before she went to bed and that kept her sleeping.

Ayla

OP - This is exactly what we were dealing with for months. Our daughter would go to sleep fine, but increasingly woke up more & more...I think the worst nights had us up about 4-5 times.

We had our daughter in a cot next to my side of the bed, and it got to the point that I'd bring her into our bed with the hope it'd settle her & we could all get some sleep. That worked for awhile, but eventually even that didn't help & we'd all toss & turn the rest of the night

As it turned up, we found out she was wheat intolerant (which could have been causing a lot of the stomach upset & waking up). We cut out the gluten & that made a massive difference. The same week, however, we also moved her cot into our elder daughter's room. Suddenly she started sleeping though the night. So, whether it was the gluten or having her cot in our room, I don't know.

Having said that, this has all been within the last month or so - when dd was almost a year old. It is possible w/ your 4 mo that he is too young to really hope for full night's sleep (maybe you've just been lucky up till now). It could also just be a stage.

Make sure creature comforts are met (i.e.: not too hot/cold/hungry/dirty nappy), then just deal with each night as they come. I feel your pain, though, I hate nights now b/c I just never know what'll happen. Only reassurance is that it won't last forever & your son will be hard to wake once he's a teenager

cynder

King Mallie wrote: »

Hi everyone

Could anyone help me with my four month old son who has now started to wake a lot during the night. He goes to bed at 8pm most nites was sleeping till 5am but now he wakes about 3 times a night and finds it very hard to get back to sleep. Unfortunately my wife has him in the habit of sleeping beside her in the bed when he used to wake but even now that does not seem to settle him. we are doing combination feeding but he is 90per cent on bottles now. He also doesnt sleep much during the day. Were all wrecked. All suggestions welcome.

thats what i ended up doing, having them in the bed with me, it was the only was we got sleep.

King Mallie

Thanks, But in our bed or the cot he wakes every 3 hours on the button.

cynder

King Mallie wrote: »

Thanks, But in our bed or the cot he wakes every 3 hours on the button.

Yep mine was every two hours and my first lady woke 11 times a night

Cat Melodeon

How long has it been going on? Could it be a growth spurt or the beginning of teething? Have to say, in my experience sleeping from 8-5 would be pretty exceptional for a 4-month old. My lad woke every 3 hours from 3 months to 7.5 months (it was every 2 hours before that but he was breastfed so that's normal). Since then (he's 14 months) he sleeps from 8pm - 2am-ish and then from 2am-8am. When he wakes we give him a bottle of water and he goes straight back to sleep, except on the nights when he's teething or growth-spurting and then he has to come into bed with us to settle.

I wouldn't recommend starting solids just yet, but as someone else said introducing another feed around 11pm might help. Is the last feed before bedtime from the bottle or boob? Night-time breast milk has a soporific effect on babies so it might be worth keeping up these two feeds for now, unless your wife absolutely needs to wean.

How are his daytime naps? How many does he have? If it's 2, you could consider moving to just one. If it's one, maybe look at when it is and what the rest of his routine is. Some so-called baby-experts say that taking a baby for a walk after the daytime nap helps consolidate night-time sleeping. It definitely helps my lad, although obviously it's not perfect as he still wakes once a night.

Don't know if any of that will help, it worked for us.

cbyrd

Switching from breastfeeding to bottles can bring on a few problems.. we discovered with our lad at 5 months that he had silent reflux and lactose intolerance, didn't show up til he was on bottles about 80% of the time, might be something you should look out for, especially the silent reflux there aren't really any symptoms other than massive whingeing . Keep an eye out for dry skin or red patches after a bath, can sometimes indicate intolerance.

Other than that try tilting his mattress with a pillow under it, it can help with comfort, babies dont' usually sleep well and then start waking up if there is nothing wrong, something is bothering him be it teeth or something else but the fact that he's not sleeping during the day means there is discomfort somewhere,

Speak to the PHN about maybe trying gavisgon infant in his bottles, there's nothing harmful in it if he hasn't got reflux, but if he has it'll settle him,

It's trial and error unfortunately, and i know exactly how you feel,
good luck with it