I Have a 4 Mo Infant That Is Awake for 4 Hours at a time.is That Normal?

It'll be fine. Babies have all different sleep patterns. You shouldn't breastfeed her to sleep all the time since that ties her sleep into you. She should be able to be fed and then rocked or soothed to sleep by others.

I'm trying to think back ... it's been a while :)

With my first born, someone told me to put him on a sleep schedule and I did (took a while). He didn't want to be on one. I screwed up his natural sleep pattern, and he was the worst of my sleepers.

My other babies al had to come along with the rest of us and sleep on the fly. They were much better sleepers.

If your baby is really actually tired, and your husband is providing her a means to go to sleep i.e. putting her down when she appears drowsy (eyes closing, yawns, etc.) then I' sure it's fine.

If you're concerned, he could try putting her in a bouncy seat or a swing and if she's tired, she will definitely drift off. Mine couldn't resist if they were in the least bit sleepy.

My concern is that she's able to take milk. Is she able to take a bottle though? Can he heat up (to body temp) a bottle of breast milk? Sometimes I had to heat mine up just a bit more than I expected to to get them to take it, and try different nipples. That always worked :)

There is no normal. If she is happy, that's fine. If cranky and tired then have your husband give her a bottle and put her down for a nap.

i'm confused. your husband doesn't lactate so he can't feed a baby? you can't express milk or provide formula?

if you only want the baby to feed at the breast, why are you back at work?

i don't think you can damage your baby by your strange schedule, but it doesn't make any sense. even if your husband has a weird handicap that precludes his handling a bottle, why would keeping your baby awake for 4 hours stop her from getting hungry?

her perfectly predictable sleep shifts are also odd, but why complain?

she's an infant. her phases will cycle in and out rapidly.

what an odd post.
khairete
S.

As long as she's getting about 14 hrs of sleep per day (including naps) and is happy she sounds fine.
Your husband should be able to feed her breast milk with a bottle when you're not there.

I think being awake for 4 hours is fine. I think it's unusual for a 4 month old to only have 1 nap a day and for it to be 4 hours long, but I don't think it's harmful. She's up until 10 PM, so that's a 4-hour stretch as well. After that, does she sleep all night? That's great if she does.

I do agree with the others that tying feeding to sleep is a huge mistake. Babies need to go to sleep with a sleep routine that does not involve the breast. There's no reason your husband can't put her down for a nap without feeding her, so I don't understand why you think that's not possible to do! Children need to be put to bed by both parents and by babysitters - they need to be flexible and secure with more than one caregiver.

You can certainly pump breast milk and have your husband or a grandparent/babysitter give it to her in a bottle. Breast milk can be frozen and it's just as nutritious no matter how it's given to the baby. I don't understand your reason for keeping a baby hungry if you get tied up in traffic or get a flat tire or whatever else. Not that it matters, I don't understand the economic value of a 2 hour shift with a 1.5 or 2 hour commute either, let alone doing it twice in one day (since you said you work 2 two-hour shifts a day). That makes no sense from a fuel economy standpoint. It must be an incredibly, highly paid position that makes it worth the effort to go for just 2 hours, yet if it's so important to be paid at such a high rate, I wonder that your employer doesn't want you there for more hours. Do you do something like drive a school bus for school or athletic events? I can see that those would be time-limited tasks, but still...

I would not be worried about her nap schedule as long as she is not overly fussy and is sleeping at night, although I preferred to have my kids on a two nap a day schedule at that time (around 2 hours each). I would be more worried about the fact that she needs to breast feed in order to fall asleep, she is at the age now where habits are beginning for form and she does need to learn to fall asleep on her own. I am not advocation cry it out of course, just no having her rely on food to fall asleep, especially if you don't want getting her to learn to fall back to sleep on her own in the middle of the night to be a nightmare.

I don't have any concerns about her sleeping schedule. If she's not fussy, she's ok. I do encourage you to work towards separating breastfeeding from sleeping though. You don't want to have to nurse her to sleep every time - it will become exhausting for you if she doesn't learn to self-sooth at night. If you want tips on how to do this, you can ask a separate question on the board. I did this but don't want to write out a big thing about it if you are not interested.