4 Month Old Sleeping Issues

You may find you just have to tough it out. No two kids are the same, except maybe twins. #2 might just take longer to get around to sleeping through the night. Mine was the opposite. #1 took a long time to sleep through the night; #2 was a breeze.

My boys are 4yrs old, 19 months old, and 10 weeks old :) I know what you are going through. My first two slept through the night by 8 weeks also but my youngest has only just started the last two nights! The only thing that has helped this along is a pacifier. He feels the need to suck so we gave him a paci at night to help him through it. Seems to be working. We gave my oldest rice cereal in his bottle too and it seemed to help him make it longer, however for my middle son we gave him rice cereal and it didn't seem to make any difference whatsoever. So if the cereal helps, keep going, if it doesn't help then just stop and only give him regular bottles.
Hope this helps!
Jen

I would dare say that your first child has you a little spoiled!! :-) Welcome to reality where the rest of live. Most babies don't sleep through the night before 8 or nine months. I have had a few lucky friends whose babies slept like 12 hours much sooner than that, but as a norm, it doesn't happen. Count your blessings that he doesn't wake you up every two hours!! Good luck!
~C.~

LP,
A 4 month old should sleep about 7 hours at night. That's a good long stretch for a tiny body to go without needing food.
I have four kids and dangit if each one of them didn't throw me a curve ball! I sure wish they had all read the same book my oldest on read... he was EASY! :-) Unfortunately, the next one threw the book out the window and the third one wrote her own book! The last one didn't stand a chance - he's really winging it!
Bottom line, try as you might, you can't compare the babies. Take the 7 hour stretch and be grateful it's not 3! :-) (That was kid #2 for me!)
Hope that helps!
T.

7 hours? You should feel lucky. My 4 year old sleeps less than that.
All kids are different. I would try putting him down a little later and be glad with 7 hours.

I had 2 children, a daughter and a son. Our daughter was very small (3lbs 13oz, full term) and thought she should never sleep . Always stayed up late and would get up at least once during the night until she was 2 yrs old. My daddy put her crib in his room and let her cry herself tosleep about 2 or 3 nights and that was when she learnt to sleep all night. She was potty trained by one year old and off the bottle at 6 mo old, walking about 10 months old. Our son was full term and 6lbs 2oz and at three months old would be sound asleep by 7:00 P.M. and slept till 7:00 A.M.. If you had a dozen children each one would be different. Our great granddaughter is 18mo old and does not sleep all night every night. sometimes she wakes up and stays up an hour or two in the middle of the night or at 3 or 4 a.m. and stays up for a while before she goes back to sleep. I'd love to know the best way to get her to sleep all night long. Hopefully increasing your childs cereal to 5 oz will help. If a baby is hungry or wet they don't sleep. If he goes right back tosleep that's not bad and 7 hours is great.

Hi, I am a 57 year old grandmother. I have three grown children and four grands one thing that helped my children and grands was music it relaxes them and helps them sleep.another thing was for the room to be dark that way when they got older they weren't afraid of the dark.Hope this helps.

All kids are different. Sleeping and eating habits will change continuously. My first born is now 5 years old and still wakes up during the night a few times a week from bad dreams. My second one is almost 3 and has been sleeping through the night since she was 2 months, waking up very rarely.

The best thing you can do is not get frustrated about it and make sure you are going to bed early and allotting 9-10 hours in case your sleep gets interrupted.

Getting enough sleep for yourself will make his sleep issue less of a problem to you and make you a better mom :)

~G.

Sounds like you were very lucky with your first one as I was. My first daughter was sleeping a full 12 hours from 9 weeks on, it was great! Then daughter number 2 came and she is now 14 months old and sleeps from 8pm until about 5 or 6 am and has 3-4 ounces of milk and goes back to sleep until 8 or 8:30. And this is a new thing for her. Up until she was about 11 or 12 months it was normal for her to get up 2 or 3 times a night.
Anyway I know what you are feeling but I have had to come to terms that my girls are VERY different and what worked for one is not going to for the other. So good luck and enjoy your 7 hours that you are getting! Before you know it he won't be a baby anymore and you will miss these bonding times!

I would say if he sleeps 7 hours straight then you're very lucky and there isn't any problem!! He is just growing and demanding more food. I do know that putting cereal in a bottle is not safe and is considered a choking hazard...spoon feeding him is the best so I hope that is how you are doing it, as you didn't reall say. but sounsd to me he is a very healthy growing baby boy!

Dear LP,

Let me first say that 7 hours of sleep at four months without waking up for any reason is remarkable! It sounds like adding the cereal has helped. Also remember that little ones go through growth spurts and will need extra but not all the time. Then you have to know every child is different and what worked for one most likely will not work for the other one. I am the proud mother of two boys also ages 10 (almost 11) and 7. Let me tell you they are as different as night and day and were as babies also. I was a stay at home mom at the time and my first one woke me bright and early at 6:00 or 7:00 so count your blessings so far! It may just take a little adjustment to get this little fellow on the right course but I think you have made great progress so far. Is there any chance gas is waking him? My first son gave us fits with that.

I hope this is helpful.

I am a pediatric nurse and also the mother of a 4 month old baby girl. We consider ourselves extremely lucky. My daughter has been sleeping through the night since she was 3 months old. She usually goes to bed at 7pm and usually sleeps until 8am. I give her a bath with lavender baby soap, massage with lavender lotion, her bottle, then bedtime. She has also been getting rice cereal in her bottle since she was 3 months old- at the advice of her pediatrician- for frequently spitting up. It does seem to have helped her sleep for longer periods. She has shown no evidence of digestive issues from the cereal and it has improved the spitting up. I would discuss using rice cereal with your pediatrician if you are concerned about it's effects.
I would not recommend letting them "cry it out" at this age. Infants at this age need to feel secure that when they cry you will be there to meet there needs. It helps them to grow up as more secure and independent children and adults.
Before my daughter started sleeping through the night she would wake up once between 2 and 5am. Eventually these night time wakings stopped. Hopefully your little one is on her way!

Sleeping through the night at 8 weeks is not common. You were lucky with your first one. Your little is probably just getting to the age when he would start sleeping through the night. My first one didn't sleep through the night until he was 11 months! And "sleeping through the night" is 6 hours, so technically, your son is sleeping through the night.

I think we have to realize when we have 2 children that each child will not be the same. They each will eat different, sleep different and play different. I have two boys 7 and 4. Both of them slept very different. My oldest was up constantly and my youngest slept through by 8 weeks as well! Your 4 month old is only 4 months and I think he is doing very well. He is sleeping for 7 hours straight at a young age. My oldest was a big eater and I couldn't get him to sleep that long until he was on baby food. cereal wasn't ever enough. Your 4 month old is growing!!!! I say count it a blessing he sleeps as he does!!!!

All babies are different and 4 months old is still really young to expect him to sleep more than 7 hours at a time. The pediatricians consider 6 hours "sleeping through the night". I wouldn't let them cry it out at such a young age. They are babies, enjoy the babiness of it, they grow up too fast.

A really great book regarding sleep issues is Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (by Marc Wiesburth-spelling?). He is a ped. and has also done sleep studies for children, he has opened a sleep clinic in Chicago and is very well known. It has been my sleep bible for all three of my children.

When he wakes up do you talk to him or just go to him and feed him with as little interaction as possible? Some children, usually breastfed babies, will need the evening feeding until they are about 9 months old. He could be going through a growth spurt, but honestly I wouldn't give him any cereal in his bottle, this can be hard for them to digest, and could actually cause him to be waking up. The pedicatric board recommends not giving children baby cereal until they are at least 6 months old. Try putting him to sleep a little earlier. Also watch how he is when he wakes up at night, maybe this is a habit for him. There are many other methods than the Cry it Out that you can use...I used CIO for all three of mine, but at different times (since they were breastfed). At 4 months old sleeping through the night is really more like sleeping from 6:30 to 10 (little feeding) and then from 10 to about 5 or 6 a.m. back to sleep for another hour or two. Good luck and I hope this helped....but honestly that book was wonderful, difficult to read at times, but had lots of different approaches to each problem you can encontour as the child grows regarding sleep.

I have a 4-month-old too--I consider sleeping 7 hours "though the night"!! It sounds like you have a GREAT SLEEPER for his age. You are lucky. I nurse before bed, around 11 p.m. and then again around 3 a.m.; she will sleep until around 6:45 a.m. and then goes down for her nap around 8:30 a.m. Compared to my first child, who is now 4, I think she's a great sleeper!

I would look into the cereal in the bottle though--I have recently read this is not a good idea (links to childhood obesity, can have issues introducing other solids later since the child is used to getting solids through a bottle, etc.). Good luck.

Have you thought about giving your son a later bath and bottle...If he gets a later bath and bottle that might extend his sleep for another hour or two...Just an idea...

LP,
One thing to think about is that ALL children are wired differently. Some will sleep through the night within a few weeks of birth and some, not until 1-2 years of age. Of course, there are many stages in between those ages that children may decide to regress or progress. You need to learn what works best for your child and try to work with it and bring out the best in him.
Our four children are so different from each other, but that is part of their unique personalities. Sometimes, just being patient and knowing that this too will pass is what is needed best. Four months is certainly not too old to be waking up in the middle of the night and 7hours of sleep is actually pretty good. Your first son simply was early in his sleeping habits and responded well to it. However, the four month old may need less sleep in order to be refreshed. This means that you may have to take some naps to catch up on your sleep needs.
If all else fails, don't exhaust yourself thinking that things absolutely must be a certain way, be flexible and relax to a new way.

Many babies wake three or four times a night for the first year,especially dring the first 6 months. yoru son sounds totally normal and healthy to me!
sounds like you had a very unusually solid sleeping first baby, so of course it makes you concerned about your second baby, who sleeps, actually, more like most babies.

I highly suggest getting the Dr. Sears baby book, even though you already have had a baby.
Every baby is different, and this reference book is easy to read, very helpful about he range of baby behaviors, whats normal, whats not, what we can do for them in all kinds of different situations.

this way, as your second baby continues to grow and perhaps be quite different that the first, you will have a really great and easy to read reference book to check.

C.

My best advice to you is the book On Becoming Baby Wise. I have 2 (2 1/2-year-old and 10-month-old) that I used the info from the Baby Wise book and it is wonderful. It helps you establish a routine so they eat and nap around the same time everyday. We started it when our babies were younger than 4 mos and both of my babies were breastfed babies and sleeping through the night at 2 mos. The key I believe is establishing the first feeding of the day and everything falls into place from there. If he is already sleeping most of the night it would probably help just adjusting him to a schedule. Once they get older they are more flexible when you have to be, but its nice for the both of you to have the routine. Hope this helps :)

No two babies are the same,if you always compare them you'll have problems later.

Have you call your doctor?

sounds like your pretty lucky with a 7 hr sleeper i was thrilled when at 6 weeks they would sleep 6-7 straight. my oldest was the tough one because she had lactose induced colic and she was on donatal(sp) anyway its an anti seizure med they gave her to stop the intestinal spasms. just a tiny bit finally she was found lactose intolerant and that starightened it all out. with the rest they hit the 6-7 hr sleep mark about 6 weeks or so the last had issues with cronic bronchitis so hers was on and off between bouts of illness. all she was dx'd with was reactive lung disease altho i think now its progressed to asthma she is doing great she has started wheezing however when she gets real upset then it calms back down after a little while with mommy keeping an eye on her to see if she needs a ne treatment. gl