Reply: At 4 months of age your little ones can only be awake for 1 hour 15 minutes to 2 hours (where in this range they fall will depend on their individual sleep needs). Follow your pediatrician’s advice as to how much to feed if you are using bottles and/or how often to feed if you are nursing. As babies get older, they don’t need to sleep in the same way that they have before. Sitting in a rocker/bouncer watching you, or interacting with you is going to be best. So you really need to start getting your son ready for sleep 15-20 minutes before his awake time is over. My daughter and I work together to do the right things for the baby, but sometimes we feel horrible about our inability to problem solve. While some babies will start to sleep well again after 2 – 3 weeks, others will have new sleeping habits that parents need to change to ensure they sleep properly. Parents should begin sleep training to help their baby get back to sleep on their own. Read the full disclosure here. Some of the recommended products in article content and in the sidebar are ads or contain affiliate links. 8:00am – Play Time (see notes below on some of the activities that she enjoyed), 2:00-3:00pm – Play Time & Solid Food Feeding (I gave her baby oatmeal during this wake time. 5. Eye rubbing, or yawning are late sleepy signs which means you’ve left it too late. During this point in their sleep schedule, babies should be eating just once at night or spend the entire night sleeping soundly. Keep his awake time very calm and low key. If you can get to him before he wakes naturally at 11pm you might disrupt his not-so-desirable cycle! The dreaded 4-month sleep regression is the time when your baby’s sleep patterns shift and they wake up often during the night and refuse to go back to sleep. The following are the most commonly asked questions regarding sleep regression and what parents can do about it: As sleep regression indicates the period of time when babies experience issues with sleeping, this can occur at any point in the 4 month old sleep schedule. 7pm-6am for a 4 month old is huge – well done! you have a great night sleeper there! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. She would sometimes sleep the whole nap and I would have to wake her for the next feeding or she would sometimes wake a frustrating 40 minutes into the nap at the transition in her sleep cycle. A 4 month old sleep schedule should include longer naps to ensure that the baby doesn’t become overstimulated or overtired. While every child’s 4 month old sleep schedule will be unique to them, parents can keep the following tips in mind to help their baby sleep better: At this point in a baby’s sleep schedule, their internal clock is now working, which allows them to differentiate between night and day. Most of the time she would not resettle if she woke early so I would just aim to put her back down 90 minutes from the time she woke and hope for a longer next nap. While parents are aiming for consistency in their baby’s sleep schedule at this time, sleep regression can make this difficult. Question: My little one is 4 months and 1 week. Well done. Also, have a look at my article about 45 minute naps here, it might shed some additional light on what is happening. At four months old, a baby is experiencing both lighter and deeper periods of sleep–just like an adult. Just make sure you keep your eye on that first wake time and don’t let it stretch too long before his first nap, or you’ll end up with an overtired baby for the rest of the day. Learn how your comment data is processed. There are probably a lot of things going on behind the scenes that are responsible for the 4 month problems, but here are a few of the most common things you can look for so help get your days and nights sorted again. While this regression may occur at just 8 weeks old, other babies may not begin to experience this regression until they reach 5 months. Your email address will not be published. Number of Naps: 3 down to 2 Nap Spacing: 3-nap schedule: 2–2.5 hours between naps 2-nap schedule: Ladder schedule (2-3-4): Time awake increases over the course of the day, with approximately 2, then 3, then 4 hours between each sleep session, starting with morning wake-up. Thankfully, the sleep issues caused by this change will eventually subside. Parents that are accustomed to feeding their baby at all hours of the night must start shifting their habits at this time. This is okay, just go with the flow and do what you need to support your baby through this developmental leap. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam.