4 months sleep regression?

Even though I'm a mom for the 2nd time, I must have forgotten all the nasty things with my son, that I actually decided to go for this again for the 2nd time!!! I can't remember anything about 4 months sleep regression with my son.

We had been struggling for a long time with reflux, and feeding issues, that maybe the sleep regression wasn't so apparant to me until recently when she started drinking better. It's been 1.5 week since she has been waking up at night. She wakes up 2-4 times at night! I first blamed it on her being hungry as initially she wasn't drinking well. Then I thought it was teething. But then someone mentioned 4-month sleep regression.

These days, you can google on almost anything, so I googled on 4 month sleep regression, and yes, I have read a lot of articles ranging from written by sleep consultants to just mommies who have been going through this. What I've gathered is that at 4 months, the brain is starting to develop in such a rapid speed that the little ones are overwhelmed by it, plus their sleeping pattern is more like an adult, meaning they will wake up a couple times at night. We as adults don't notice that as much anymore as we have learned to go back to sleep, while the little ones haven't been able to do so yet.

In the beginning, we have been running down to her, or most of the time, I'm the one doing so, checking on her, and putting her dummy back into her mouth. But each time, as she waves with her arms all the time, rubbing her eyes, her nose, her head, etc, the dummy is out before I get out of the room. So these days, I only do it once, and then just walk out of her room again, and let her be. I'm often lying on my bed afterwards, fearing hearing her over the baby phone, so even if she has fallen back to sleep, I often am in my bed all awake. Sometimes my hubby will be awake, and he will also do the same. There was one night a week ago that she was really upset and crying, that we just fed her.

Now after having done some reading, I've come to the conclusion to try a few things:

1. Try not giving her the dummy, as she will get so dependent on it that she will make me get out of my bed each time when that thing falls out of her mouth. I wish there was a manufacturer who can come up with something better, something that will just stay in her mouth, at least for the night! This part I can remember with my son, whereby I was doing the exact same thing, especially during the nap times! We already put a little cloth through the ring of her dummy, which is a trick that I had learned from the hospital with my son at the time.
2. Try putting her to bed earlier. I really notice the major difference with having a second child! You just have less room to be flexible! You have to pay attention to the fact that your other child needs to be able to sleep too, or get dinner on time. You can't just focus on one child. The fortunate thing is that my son goes to my ex often these days during the summer holiday, so that I've more room to be flexible at the moment. We have been bringing her upstairs for her bath at 7:30 pm, and then she would be having her bottle at 7:45 pm. If she drinks well, she would be in bed by 8 pm. I remember with my son, I used to have him in bed between 7 pm and 7:30 pm. So maybe we need to bring her bedtime a bit earlier to make a small difference?! My husband comes home often late, which is also one of the reasons why we have been doing this kinda late, as I wanted to have him to be involved as well as helping me. I know I can do it alone, but still....
3. Try giving her just the normal bottle at 11:30 pm instead of messing around with the rice cereal which I've not got the right mixture with the right size teat. If someone has a great knowledge on this, please educate me! But last night, as I tried giving the milk mixed with rice cereal, with a smaller teat that the one she was offered the night before which she almost choked over it, it took her initially ages to drink, and then when I went downstairs to make another normal bottle of milk and left her with my hubby, she was all awake and thought it was time to play. She found playing with her milk in her mouth quite interesting, just that I definitely wasn't amused at that hour. She also took awhile to go back to sleep as she was chatting the whole time then.
4. Try telling myself that from all the issues we had been through, this has to be NEXT TO NOTHING! This will pass, and I will get some sleep!!! I read a blog written by a mom about her daughter going through this. She wrote this a year ago, so the good thing about an old post is that I could just click through all posts she wrote, and saw she actually got to sleep again. She did have to do sleep training by using Cry-it-out option which was her last option after they had tried everything, but after a week or two, her daughter actually slept much better. I really secretly hope we won't have to apply this approach in the future!
5. Sit it out... yes... final resort, which isn't even a choice

I'm hoping one day I can read back, and have a smile on my face and realizing I was getting all worked up and worried over something so tiny!




Yeah... she is now in the phase of realizing how magical her hands are!