Help! My 4 Month Old Won't STAY Asleep!

Dear T.,
Your story is so familiar to our situation. The first 7 month of my son Oliver's life he never slept through the night, surviving on napping 20-30 mins at the time and also did not get any sleep during the day. Like you, we tried everything you mentioned, but nothing worked.

My main concern was that Oliver's brain development would be impaired by the back of sleep and I spoke to our pediatrician and health care worker who told me that this is simply how some babies are, which is no help when you yourself is sleep deprived and craving just a couple of hours sleep.

I was recommended a book by Dr. Marc Weissbuth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and I pass this recommendation on to you.
The books will not provide with you a fail proof solution but will give you suggestions and most importantly allow you to understand what is happening to your child.

The key learning I took is to put sleep resistant babies down for a nap every!! 1.5 - 2 hours and how to recognise the signs of sleepiness, This is hard going for a few weeks but eventually Oliver caught on to the benefits. Also sleep resistant babies should go to bed early around 6 -7 PM. This for some families seems unreasonable as it gives you no freedom to leave the house with your baby in the evening but it's worth it in the long run. The books explains the benefits and why's.

Today at 10 month, Olive still is not a great sleeper during the day but is in his bed sleeping between 6-7 PM and usually stays a sleep until around 6 AM.

I know its tough what you are experiences but it wont last forever, so stay positive.

Kind regards
L.

Typically, the 5 S'es don't aren't supposed to be as "helpful" as the baby grows beyond 3 months (that fourth-trimester Harvey Karp MD speaks of). Call your peditrician and see about sleep training. They might have some younger infant strategies you can try.

Our little one was the same way, and the day (literally) she started day care--4 months one week, she started sleeping through the night. She was on a very solid routine at day care due to the fact that she was one of the only infants there so the daily routine was dictated more by the older kids. It worked out very well (of course that 9 month growth spurt kind of messed things up, but we got 5 months of rest before then!).

You didn't mention your daily routine, but maybe if it's consistent and engaging that could help her distinguish day for play, and night for sleep? Also, on the advice of a great friend with three kids--we started our nighttime routine at 6:45 with the goal of having her in her crib by 7:30. It seemed SO early for us, but it was what worked and totally surprised us!

When I felt like I was having a very hard time coping with her sleep issues (at 9 months) I went to a drop-in meeting called "let's talk about sleep" at the Community Birth and Family center. It was so helpful! Here's a link to the different classes. I think they have a $5/donation request per session. A great deal of the sessions are facilitated by Ann Keppler, who is considered somewhat of a "guru" in the birthing/early childhood experts community.

http://www.communitybirth.org/classes&events.html

I wish you much success and rest!

It was sometime after 5m that my daughter finally started going to sleep earlier in the evening. Up to that point she would take what I called the evening "mini-nap" from about 8pm to 9pm, then finally go down for the night at 10:30 or so. Gradually over the course of the 5-6m range she started staying asleep at 8pm and sleeping through the night. I finally stopped fighting it and just accepted that she wasn't going down until 10pm and it was shortly after that when she first stayed asleep at 8pm. She was napping well during the day so I didn't worry too much about loss of sleep though.

You have to shorten her naps during the day, in essence you have to train her when to sleep or you will never get any during the night.

Read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child!! IT saved my sanity.

Out of my four kids I've had two who did this. We just called it power napping. They'd go to sleep long enough to get some energy and be wide awake again. Their body knows when they need sleep. Don't worry about it mom :o) Just be glad that you get her to sleep through the night. That's the most important thing.

My son did the same thing, from 4 months to 9 months. Yeah, it was a drag. At least he slept through the night, though, so we had that going for us. But forget about getting ANYTHING done during the day. Like you I tried everything. I'd even hold him for naps, in the hopes that it would help. Sometimes it eeked another 10 minutes out of him, but mostly it didn't do anything. I read all the books, all the websites (I like research), but again, like your situation, nothing helped. Oh, except driving around, but with a 2-year-old you can't really do that. It bites. I feel for you, and I hope it improves soon!