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it sounds like the 4 month sleep regression to me. It might be time to start sleep training and let her figure out how to soothe herself back to sleep. Also, if she is having trouble getting to sleep, you might want to try to put her down just a bit earllier. The more tired they are, the more difficult it is to get them to sleep. Liv went to bed around 6pm when she was that age. Shes up to about 8pm now at 16 months old, but some nights she is so tired she goes down by 7. 10:30 sounds super late to me.

When she is waking up, is she hungry, or just crying because she needs consoling? If its consoling, Id look into sleep training. A lot of people start with the 4 month regression. If you do a search on here, there are a TON of 4 month sleep regression posts. It drives everyone nuts =o) I know what you are going through, and I remember how difficult it was. Hang in there, it does pass!

It seems like maybe setting a routine would be good for her. We started a bedtime routine and set bedtime around 3.5 months. Before 3 months my son went to bed when we did. But then his naps got shorter, etc., so we started putting him to bed earlier and earlier. Even 9 is a relatively late bedtime for a 4 month old. Once you establish a little more consistently with routine and bedimte, things might sort out.

@mandb36: I wouldnt doubt that she might be hungry for the 4am wakeup. If I remember correctly, Liv woke up once per night at 3am for a feeding consistently. The rest were just comfort. Id say def start her routine a bit earlier and not go in quickly for any wakings except the 4am one. Liv was swaddled until about 5months, and she started getting frustrated by it and waking up pissed off. That could be a reason. We quit the swaddle cold turkey, but the ONLY way she would sleep without the swaddle was on her belly.

@mandb36: I hear you on the swaddling/not swaddling thing. My mom was convinced the swaddle (now the Woombie because she can break out of every swaddle) was making her mad so she took her arms out, and immediately regretted it. Ugh. oh and LMW screams like someone's murdering her, too. What the heck. Wagon Jr. never cried like that... I think it's the girl dramatics... maybe?? haha.

This sounds really familiar except that my LO is only 3 months old and her night sleep is still all over the place! We started trying to put her down early this week (between 5:30-7:00 depending on her last nap) and I am really watching the clock during the day to limit her wake time 90 minutes or so. We had a few longer stretches of sleep (4 hrs and then 3 hrs after nursing) the first couple of nights but it is back to being 2-3 hrs at a time. Last night we discovered she could roll onto her side and even on her stomach while in the woombie so we switched her to a sleep sack in the middle of the night because I was worried she would roll over and get stuck. but then she seemed to be up all night as a result of her arms being free.

How do you help them learn to put themselves back to sleep? Is sleep training the only way to do it? We have tried drowsy but awake but that hasn't worked too well so far!

@mrs. wagon: I know! My DD is either smiley or screaming like someone is killing her! It's so weird. But anyhow, i wanted to share...Lil Banana is sleeping through the night and she goes down by herself (without rocking). Hallelujah!!!

So what I think helped was that we stopped swaddling her during naps (so that she'll learn to self soothe by sucking on her hands) AND we let her nap on her tummy (supervised by either my mom or I). The tummy napping was key because since she's unswaddled, she needed to be on her tummy to avoid waking up due to the moro reflex. We did this for all of her naps for a week and she just eventually learned to self soothe herself to sleep. Now that she has learned how to fall asleep, we just lay her down in her crib and she'll squirm and fuss a little bit and then eventually find her hand and suck on it and fall asleep! It's awesome! Tonight, I bathed her at 7:00, nursed her, played with her (so that she doesn't need to nurse to sleep), then I rocked her for a few minutes to get her a little drowsy, and then laid her down on her tummy. She squirmed a little bit and released a bunch of gas! Then I flipped her over onto her back and she's been sleeping since!

I was kinda nervous about letting her tummy nap but my mom insisted that it's fine (my brother and I both slept on our tummies as newborns). Plus she said babies like sleeping on their tummies because the pressure feels like they're in utero. Well whatever the reason, tummy nap training totally worked for us!

MAN...I really hope this isn't some sort of fluke! It's been like this for a week so I think it's working!!!

I declare sleep regression, from month 4 to month 5, my life was hell! lol!!

@prettylizy: @mandb36: I'm convinced this is why God made babies so cute. The more frustrating they get, the cuter they get. I keep telling her "you're lucky you're so cute".

@prettylizy: seriously. Then when they hit their terrible twos (usually starting well before 2!) they learn how to talk with those adorable baby accents... "I'm sowee mommee, I wuv yoo".... aghhhhh

@prettylizy: yup. you are done for. especially when they cry out for you at night. get ready to melt into a pile of useless mush!