4 months baby sleep timing

my baby is now 4 and half months old. every night she doesn't sleep till 1:30 or 2 am then she gets up 8 am.

afternoon she only naps 30 min but evening time from 6pm to 8pm.

i really want to change her sleep patten at night. so i can have some rest as well since phyiscally exhausted each day. i donot know how long i have to wait so she could sleep through the night. please give me some advise.

There are lots of things you can do to help tweak her schedule, and this is a great age for schedule tweaking [it gets progressively harder after 6 months or so]. Right now, I'd bet your kid is getting overstimulated if she is really averaging only 8-9 hours out of 24, because most 4mo babies need closer to 14-16 hours which they get in one long night sleep and about 3 daytime naps.


How often does your baby eat during the day? Is the breastfed/formula fed or a combination? How do you put her to sleep? Does she generally eat when she wakes up or right before she goes to sleep?


Start by keeping a journal of her sleep habits for 2-3 days. Is she consistent? Particularly look for signs of her becoming tired after being awake for about 3 hours. If you try to put her to sleep right then, even if she doesn't generally have a sleep then, will she sleep?


Some practical and immediate suggestions: Keep the lights very very dim after you put her down at 6. See if you can't feed her and put her directly back to sleep. It is common for 4mo kids to have 10-12 hour sleeps at night, but many/most of them do need at least 1-2 feeds during the night. A common schedule would be to feed right before bed, then give a "dream feed" right before you go to bed [never worked for us, but many people get great results], and then the baby sleeps until 5-6am, but may manage to have a nip and back to sleep for an hour or two.


Start her day with a feed, and then try to get her in the habit of putting herself to sleep when she gets tired instead of feeding her to sleep, and then feeding her when she wakes up. One problem that some kids who get fed to sleep have is that they are just too tired to eat a full meal, and then they wake up hungry after a short time. At this age, the average baby can stay awake for about 3 hours, so be alert for subtle cues starting about 2.5 hrs after she wakes up. We found that even going to sleep in the pram is a step in the right direction [as opposed to falling asleep in somebody's arms]. Do not let anybody hold your baby while she naps -- this is a very hard habit to break, and it is no fun for you if the baby decides that sleeping in somebody's arms or on somebody's chest is soooo comfy and she'd like to do that all night long.


A "wind down" ritual -- before bed this will probably include a bath, but even at nap time -- ours was fairly short -- change diaper, swaddle, dim lights, put him down and pat his leg with a hand on his head -- it can help your baby make the transition from being awake to being asleep.


Regular timing for feeds and naps. Some kids are more flexible than others, but we have always gotten the best results if we keep to pretty strict schedules.


Make sure that it is really boring during the night when you want her to be sleeping.


If possible, get somebody to help you out for a couple/few nights. It's really hard to deal with baby sleep issues when you're exhausted yourself.


Good luck

Hi Medical-HK,


How's the baby going?


Is your baby cat-napping in the day time? Sometimes, parents think their babies don't sleep much in the day time but actually, the baby is getting a lot of sleep through napping. Such as falling asleep while drinking milk etc.


Z's advice is all great - especially keeping a diary so you can see what's going on.


If I were in your situation, I would perhaps try to adjust the 6-8 pm schedule first. Because if the baby has a huge nap at this time, then the baby will not want to go to bed until midnight!


You could try waking her at 7pm, after a one hour nap. Then hopefully baby might feel tired to go to sleep a bit earlier than 1:30am.


Then maybe somehow you could keep bringing that big nap time back... get her to sleep at 5-7pm etc... until she has her big nap earlier in the day so she'll feel more tired at night time.


My baby wouldn't sleep until 1:30am... so I made an effort for ages to wake her at 7am so that eventually she would sleep earlier. It took a long while but gradually in stages she went to sleep earlier and earlier.


One rule from Gina Ford is not to let your baby have a nap after 4pm, if you want them to go to bed three hours later.


Here's the Gina Ford schedule if you want a guide on nap times... (times are flexible...)


Baby wakes up at 7am.


Has a nap of around 45 minutes between 9-10 am.


Has a big lunch time nap of up to 2 hours between 12 - 2pm.


Had a small afternoon nap of maybe 15 mins or 30 mins, but must be awake before 4pm so that they go to bed at 7pm.

Around 4 months most babies are starting to give their mothers better nights sleep. It is also possible to start "controlled crying " to assist in getting the baby in to a better routine . Your baby probably needs 2 good naps per day one in the morning and one in the afternoon .Unfortunately for you, your baby is napping from 6pm -8pm and as a consequence is charged up to play until 0130 leaving you exhausted .

You would be welcome to bring your little one to baby clinic where we could discuss in more detail how to change your baby's routine and hopefully give you a better nights sleep.


With best regards


Well baby clinic 2849 1500


Matilda International Hospital

Hong kong

http://www.matilda.org

thanks for advise. i am bottle feeding her from day she was born her habbit is fall in sleep while drinking milk, she sleeps 1.30 am, wakes up 8 am, sleep again wake up 11 am. during day time she takes short naps 30min, then sleep from 2pm to 4pm. this is her routine which i have noted down. please advise