In this post we’ll be covering the 4 month old wake window, with tips to overcome the 4 month sleep regression, a sample schedule for this age and more!
What’s inside:
How long is the 4 month old wake window?
Why is following your baby’s awake window important?
How to prevent an overtired baby
4 month old baby sleep schedule (plus nap schedule)
What to do about short naps at this age
Tips on preventing the 4 month sleep regression
How long is the 4 month old wake window?
By 4 months, your baby is now able to stay awake for a longer amount of time, and the awake window for this age is 2 hours.
Keep in mind that the wake window does include the wind down period, and it’s still a good idea to spend 10-15 minutes carrying out a bedtime routine before each sleep.
For reference the three month old wake windows were 1 hour, 45 minutes and the two month old wake windows were 1.5 hours. If you like to know what’s coming, the 5 month old wake windows are 2 hrs, 15 minutes.
Some babies have a hard time time adjusting to the two hour wake window, and if this is the case, it’s best to gradually stretch out their wake window by lengthening it by 5 minutes every couple of days.
Many parents make the mistake of thinking their baby just can’t get to the two hour wake window and keep them at shorter wake windows, only to be frustrated when their baby wakes up after just one sleep cycle (45 minutes).
Developmentally, baby is ready for a 2 hour wake window at this age, and keeping them at shorter wake windows means they are likely to wake up early from a nap, thus disrupting their entire day.
Why is following your baby’s awake window important?
Your baby’s wake window is perfectly aligned with baby’s natural body clock.
Their circadian rhythm, which is influenced by the hormones melatonin and serotonin that naturally rise and fall throughout the day, correspond perfectly with an early wake up, nap at 9 a.m., nap again around noon and an early bedtime.
The only nap on baby’s schedule at this age that doesn’t fall during a natural wake window is baby’s last nap of the day. That naps serves to give baby a quick rest so that they don’t get overtired before bedtime.
Following an age-appropriate wake window for your baby ensures that their schedule syncs up with what’s happening with them biologically.
How to prevent an overtired baby
The biggest thing you can do at this age is to make sure baby doesn’t get overtired is to give them ample time and space to rest when they need to.
This means not every nap should be on-the-go. If you can, try to be home for the lunchtime nap, as it’s often the most restorative nap of the day.
Because baby is so young, stretching those wake windows at this age typically backfires and results in a baby who’s just too overtired to go down at all.
Yes, you want to be aiming for a wake window of 2 hours, but you also want to watch for baby’s sleepy cues, too as to when it’s time to put baby to sleep.
Baby sleep cues:
- Decreased activity
- Slower motions, less vocal/social
- Not interested in toys/people as much
- Yawning
- Redness around eyebrows or eyes
Many new parents think things like whining, fussing and pulling ears are common sleep cues, when in reality, these are overtired cues.
If you see any overtired cues, quickly get baby into bed and make note of the time so that you can catch baby before they get too tired next time.
If you notice sleepy cues closer to the 3 month wake window of 1 hour and 45 minutes, try the technique of extending the awake window by 5 minutes every 2-3 days until baby is comfortable with the longer wake window.
4 month old baby sleep schedule (plus nap schedule)
Here’s some important notes about the sleep schedule below–
At this age, baby is likely to take several shorter naps or two short naps and one longer nap.
If your baby is leaning more towards several short naps at this age, it’s a good idea to start working towards consolidating their sleep, as these shorter naps start to leave baby overtired if they don’t learn to take longer naps in the future.
You also want to make sure that you don’t start the first nap before 9 a.m., as a nap any earlier will create a reverse sleep phase shift, resulting in your baby waking up extra early each morning.
Aim to start the last nap of the day no earlier than 4 p.m., as a nap earlier will eventually cause the lunch time nap to dwindle.
The lunch time nap should be taken at home if possible, as it is the longest and most restorative nap of the day. This is also the nap that baby will hold unto until they stop napping, as both the morning and later afternoon nap will eventually be dropped.
The top off feed at 11:30 is meant to encourage baby to take a longer mid day nap.
The last nap of the day does not fall during a natural wake window and is only meant to help baby make it to bedtime without getting overtired.
I tell parents to do an assisted nap here, so walking baby in the stroller, holding or rocking them for a quick 15-30 minute nap works well here.
You’ll notice that bedtime is still fairly early, and not quite 2 hours after the afternoon nap wake up and that’s because by 6:30 your baby’s melatonin levels are really high, while cortisol is falling off, so we want to make sure we put baby down when it’s easiest for them to get off to sleep.
- 7am awake & feed
- 8.45 am wind down
- 9am nap
- 10 am awake
- 10.30 & 11am feed
- 11.30am top up feed
- 12/12.15pm nap
- 2.15 pm awake
- 2.30pm feed
- 4.30pm nap
- 5pm awake & feed
- 5.30pm bath
- 6pm feed
- 6.15/6.30pm bed
- 10.30pm Dream feed (optional)
Nighttime sleep starts to become more predictable at 4 months. At this age, some babies can sleep through the night. Formula fed babies are more likely to sleep through the night than breastfed babies.
A dream feed at 10 or 10:30 can sometimes encourage a baby to sleep through until 7 a.m.. Any more than one nightly feed at this age (if baby is thriving) would be considered excessive.
Make sure to start babies day by 7 a.m., as this is in line with baby’s biological clock and helps keep the rest of the day on track.
What to do about short naps at this age
As I hinted above, a baby that takes only short naps at this age can start to present quite a problem as baby quickly becomes overtired, often hard to settle for naps and causing frequent night wake ups.
A sleep cycle is 45 minutes. The first nap of the day is really just one sleep cycle, but the midday nap is 2-3 sleep cycles, and using baby settling techniques like shush/pat, pick up/put down or spaced soothing can really encourage babies to learn how to connect sleep cycles and put themselves down to sleep, as well.
You really want to work at avoiding baby getting overtired at all costs, and that’s why when baby is taking those short naps, it’s a good idea to offer bridging naps.
Bridging naps are a cat napper’s savior! To give a bridging nap you offer a quick 10-15 minute nap to allow baby to make it to their next regularly scheduled nap.
Be careful here not to let these naps go past 15 minutes as anymore than that and baby is getting into a deep sleep, and as a result, it will be very difficult to get them to adhere to any sort of nap schedule after that.
Following a schedule, working on prolonging naps, and using a settling method really goes a long way towards helping baby take longer naps.
Tips on preventing the 4 month sleep regression
The dreaded 4 month sleep regression can actually hit anytime between 4-6 months and can even come as early as 3 months, which is sometimes why it’s referred to as the 3 month sleep regression.
Here are some quick tips to make sure your baby can breeze past this speed bump:
Make sure baby has time and space to nap each day. By 4 months, babies are really too alert to nap on the go all of the time.
I typically tell parents to make sure they’re at least home for the midday nap, as that’s the longest and most restorative nap.
Get baby to sleep on time. By watching the clock and baby’s sleepy cues, you’ll know when the right time is to put them down.
Even missing the window by 15-20 minutes can mean that baby is now overtired and will likely fight sleep at that point.
Don’t forget about bridging naps for babies that are taking those shorter naps during the day.
Work on baby’s sleep environment. No more naps in broad daylight at this age. Work on creating a dark space, preferably with blackout curtains so that baby can have the best chance at sleep.
I always suggest adding a sound machine in, too.
At this age, I would not add a swaddle if you have not done that in the past. But, if you are swaddling baby, I would keep swaddling them until they show signs of rolling.
Try settling methods to help baby begin to learn the art of self soothing.
Kick the paci to the curb! By four months, the paci can quickly become a prop, and babies will likely start to wake frequently crying out to you to come reinsert their paci.
It’s going to be several long months before your baby can find and replace their own paci, and for that reason, the best course of action here is to just drop it, cold turkey.
Here’s even more info on baby awake windows if you’d like some further reading.
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