Help settling 4 month old.

ok have saved your address, you can remove it now. Will forward you the book when I get home today :)

if you give me your email address I'll send you the pantly book for no-cry settling techniques. :)

Sorry kiwispiers, I wasn't referring to you, just somewhere earlier in the thread it was mentioned about the 4hr feedings. ;)

And I should clarify I'm not necc against GF as a whole either, I have read TCLB and a lot of her advice was sound. In particular a criticism I've heard is that she says when you feed your baby at night you should interact. I totally agree. I did think the 4 hourly feeds were sooner but could well be wrong. I know most of the GF's (and other scheduled feeding books) I know ended up supplementing with formula as their babies seemed hungry after a BF.

Just to throw a little somethin into the mix here - Gina Ford does not promote 4 hourly breast feeding at any time in the first 6 months at least, not even with formula feeding. Reason being it does not fit into her routine, as well as the issues it can create with milk supply for mum. I've had awesome success wit GF but I do get why people are against her, we're all different, so are our babies :D Just wanted to set that record straight ;) OP, hope you can find the success you're needing ;)

I know Gina Ford works well for some but it is widely criticized as being death for breastfeeding. 4 hourly feeding routines were designed for bottle fed babies and even WHO has advised against them for BF after babies were found to be malnourished. I know very few (but some) woman who have managed to feed that way and exclusively breastfeed to 6 months. Most woman who successfully manage to EBF for an extended period of time feed far more frequently, if your baby is a snacker then its more likely to be 2 hourly (my baby's reflux disappeared overnight when I started feeding this way instead of the 3 hourly EASY routine) I also read the weissbluth book, it is a hard read but good advice. I was very sleep deprived at the time but I believe he is different from the likes of the baby whisperer and GF in that he is not concerned about feeding schedules, just sleeping ones and he advises you tailor them to your baby rather than a one size fits all. At 4 months he advises working on a set time for the morning nap, usually 9am. You will need to stretch your baby a bit if she wakes at 6 and wake her by 7 if she doesn't do it herself. The next naps will be based on tired signs but your long term goal is 3 scheduled naps and a set bedtime (mine was a short napper so had 4 for quite a while) 30 minutes is too short, you might be able to extend this by waiting until around when you know she is due to wake and quickly soothing her back before she wakes fully. I could do this with my guy by giving him his dummy and once he went back to sleep it would be a long nap. otherwise she will need to be put down more frequently and will need an earlier bedtime. (like 5pm) If you don't want to do anything involving crying (I don't think it about being strong, its about not really believing in it) then if you want I can email you a PDF of the "no cry sleep solution" by Elizabeth Pantly. No-cry sleep techniques take longer, but there is advice about how to gradually wean your baby from things like being rocked/fed to sleep. Ideally you will feed your baby immediately on waking, you might find if you do it in the bedroom in dim light she will feed for longer than once she is fully awake) and then feed again if necessary before she naps, but not immediately before.

Thanks Plumie and Pentel again I thought that was a long time but reading Gina Ford and thought I could try that routine. As thinking no routine is part of the problem. Maybe bad idea. Do you always wake baby at the same time in the morning? I usually just let her wake up whenever she does and that can range from 6 to 8. I never wake my sleeping baby! Just put him back to bed after being awake roughly two hours. Things might change when my DD starts school:)

I also recommend Healthy Sleep Habits. You name the book I've read it but Healthy Sleep Habits is what finally did it for us.

ha ha ha plumie!! we obviously both read the Dr Weissbluth book well!! as for Gina Ford.... burn it!

the book that plumie mentions (Healthy Sleep Habits) is v good, really recommend this, he suggests that to protect the baby's nap routine you should wake them at 7am, so they can take the first nap of the day by 9am latest, I found that DD sorted out her daytime naps once I started doing this, she's 6 months and naps 8.30-10.30, then 12.30-14.30 and then bedtime routine starts at 17.30, sleeps till 7am (wakes for 2/3 feeds at night). I have days where this varies depending on what I'm doing, but I try to limit messing with this routiine. at 4 months your DD will probably need 3/4 shorter naps with shorter awake periods inbetween, sleep patterns change a lot in this first year!

Thanks Plumie and Pentel again I thought that was a long time but reading Gina Ford and thought I could try that routine. As thinking no routine is part of the problem. Maybe bad idea. Do you always wake baby at the same time in the morning? I usually just let her wake up whenever she does and that can range from 6 to 8. Mornings - I always wake her, unless she wakes by herself at 7! Never let her go longer than 7am. If she wakes before this, I leave her in her cot, until 7am - walk in, open the curtains, pick her up, we have a look outside the window (to switch the brain in to day mode) and then we start the day. And the same with night time, wind down at 6am (book, singing), bath at 6:15, massage, feed and then in bed by 7pm (non negotiable)

I have the EASY routines that I can email you, as a starting point - twokidsindubai at gmail dot com I roughly do 4 hour feeds but am not clock watching, it is more the EASY sequence, and identifying signs of tiredness. Both of my children self-settled as I physically would not be able to handle the rocking to sleep. As Plumie mentioned - bath, BF, swaddle (or sleeping bag for my 6 mo old), story and then musical mobile. DS also has a 'blankie' that I only give him when he is expected to sleep - this can be anything like a blanket or Teddy, that he plays with or rubs over his face. When he did not sleep (as newborn) - white noise, loud soothing music to break the crying cycle, rolling to side and patting on back to my song - anything but picking him up (but there were days that nothing worked and for my sanity let him sleep on my chest:)

Thanks SA Babe I think that could be some of the problem, she is not in a routine. I have just been demand feeding. I have been trying to push her towards 4 hr feeds but don't think it's working. 4hrs?! IMO that is too long a stretch for a breastfed baby at that age. 3hrs should be do-able! What worked with DD - when she woke I would give her a quick feed (normally 4/5min, sometimes even less) then she would have her "play time", she would then take her full feed just before her nap. Worth a try?

If you're breastfeeding then you should absolutely feed on demand.. do not try to make the baby wait, BM is food and drink.. who wants to wait for a drink in this weather! You can encourage the EASY routine by always offering the breast when she wakes up, no routine has to be fixed. Limiting time at the breast will affect your milk, it's all about supply and demand.

Another EASY follower :) If you don't have the book, I highly recommend getting it or Healthy Sleep Habits by Marc Weissburg is another excellent one! We also worked with Cecile to help us sort out DD's sleep challenges and had it cracked within a few weeks! If you do decided to do sleep training, be patient as it takes 2 weeks to develop a bad habit and 2 weeks to break one!!! - A baby at that age, can go 1.5hrs max 2hrs awake time. Anything longer than this and you will have a battle on your hands! The older they get, the longer the awake time will become. - Also watch out for "tired signs" - sneezing, blank stare, sneezing, hiccuping, rubbing eyes etc. As soon as these appear, you know it is time for bed. - Consistency is key! Babies learn by "repitition" - so try to do the same things every time baby goes down for a nap. Draw curtains, sing a lullaby, play white noise, swaddle, cuddle etc We went with controlled crying, it was a tough 2 weeks - but paid off huge dividends when all the hard work was done! Locked myself indoors for 2 weeks and cemented our plan! Like with anything, sleeping is a skill and CAN be trained, it's the trainer/s that need to be consistent, determined and Mum & Dad both need to be on the same page :) Good luck x <em>edited by plumie on 03/06/2011</em>

I think 4 months is a difficult age to try and get a baby that has been used to being rocked to sleep to learn how to self settle, the baby won't yet understand that you are in the other room and not coming back. Keep awake time to 90 mins max inbetween naps, have a routine such as nappy change, sleeping bag, curtains closed, cuddles/song/rocking (whichever you choose) and then as you've previously rocked her to sleep, do this and then when she's asleep (check for limp limbs!) sit still for at least 20 mins and then try to put her down, if she wakes up then hold her again until she goes limp and repeat... she needs to be in a deep sleep before you put her down otherwise you'll have to start the process all over again. I also had the rule that if she woke up crying then she needed to go back to sleep so I would do whatever was necessary to get her back to sleep, even if that meant rocking for 20 mins just to get 30 mins more sleep. She can self settle throughout the night but it is apparently a different part of the brain that deals with day and night sleep so you have to train 2 different areas, I started encouraging DD to self settle just before 6 months, try the nap routine for a few weeks and then see if you can put her down after the cuddling (without the rocking) and see if she settles.. she may protest/shout about it but you'll know if it's her upset cry or just complaining. It's about changing the sleep associations/props. HTH

Two things that really helped me with my son was 1. The BABYWHISPER books They both work on getting our LO into a predicatable routine Helps you look for sleeps signs etc Babywhisper has an "EASY" philosophy Eat Activity Sleep You time after reading this I got my LO to take 2 long naps(1.5 hour) and one short nap (20-40min) in the afternoon while he was less than 12months, We used to swaddle and leave him to look at him fav toy - instead of rocking or bf - it was lifechanging! Now he is 16 months and does 3 hours in the middle of the day - with a 7:30pm bedtime and he used to be a horrible sleeper - waking up more times at day and night than i could count! The other excellent resource was a south african midwife called Cecile De Scally (she works out of little wonder nursery now - i think) Alot of what she advised us - was in the babywhisper book but the diff was with her we could call her when the books did not have the answers - e.g when we started sleep training - i called her when i put him done (he resisted on every level) and she helped me thru it Now my son is an absolute dream - by getting adeqaute sleep when he is awake he is all smiles - no tiredness or crankiness - i actually get sad when i have to put him done for a nap or bedtime sorry for the long reply - but just wanted to highlight the success of following a routine - we are not hard and fast about the routine - we keep to it about 98% of the time - i mean we human something we need to be out when its his bedtime/naptime