Gina Ford: 4 months sleep regression or growth spurt?

Tenyearstogo

I love the way this thread is telling mothers to feed the baby when it's hungry, but the there's another thread condemning mother who allow their children to eat in between meals.

Incidentally, I think everyone should eat when they're hungry.

Canucksfan

Hi Roses!
I'll stick my neck out and say I LOVE the GF method! Like you, I have adapted it to our needs (baby and mine), so I don't pump. I first used the method almost 14 years ago with my eldest and have just had No 6, who is also feeding and sleeping well.
I would argue that there is a place for baby books to give advice, especially in this modern age of Mums having moved away from family for work/cheaper housing. I never had to do any of that controlled crying nonsense- phew!
If your baby is v hungry, speak to the HV about weaning. I never got past the four month mark with mine, before they needed solids-and yes, they lurved baby rice!!! Try not to overdo it with the housework- conserve your energy for your lovely baby!

dizziblonde

I find if I mentally put my mother and mother-in-law's faces on the front cover of baby books it puts the contents of them into perspective. If it's something I'd listen to and take on board from one of them then I do so, otherwise I treat it the same way as I'd treat any face-to-face baby advice I disagreed with... smile, nod and ignore. (Obviously you don't need to nod and smile at the books but the sentiment's the same)

bylromarha

A proud Gina Ford mum here...worked for both mine and for several friends too with several babies. Love how the words Gina Ford get so many heckles up - I have my hackles raised at lots of threads on MSE, but I close them and move on rather than post. And what a shame a tired new mum seeking advice is having to defend her choices repeatedly - thought we're supposed to help.

OP- it sounds to me like baby has got the night time and daytime times muddled up - are you doing the 10pm wake up for the last feed of the day? If baby isn't feeding comfortably between 2pm and 8pm, but having a good feed 2am and 8am - those are the 2 times you want to swap round! I'd probably start to try to swap them round by using an expressed bottle for the 5pm feed, so he has a feed then and is ready for another good feed before bed at 7pm from the boob. With the view to encouraging less food at 4am.

Also, any mileage in doing the 7am wake up? More ready for the 9am nap then. Or are you doing an 8am - 8pm day rather than a 7am - 7pm day?

And are you doing the expressing at the times recommended? I found that when mine were having growth spurts, as I'd expressed when suggested, there was always enough to feed for the growth spurts - I just had less to express then.

The non moneysaving option is to join the Gina Ford forum where you can get more advice from like minded mums and nannies.

Enjoy Cyprus!

Bluebell1000

Your experience sounds so similar to ours! Almost a year ago Elliot was 4 months old. He had been sleeping 8 hours straight (10pm-6am) then waking for a feed, before having another hour or two sleep. Suddenly the weather got hot, we were on holiday, and he started waking during the night. first once, then twice, then up to 4 times. Each time for a good long breast feed (on demand).

We tried solids from about 5 months, then mixed feeding from about 8 months with formula top-ups (also I was working regularly and couldn't express enough anyway). After almost a year of broken sleep hubby finally introduced controlled crying and I stopped breast feeding, while I was away for 2 nights, a month ago. The first night was screaming for hours, but he did get much better at sleeping very quickly. Elliot now sleeps almost through, we occasionally have to go in and re-settle him by rocking.

It's not something I'd suggest trying at that age - I think 4 months is probably too young for it. I do hope you have more luck with getting your little one back into the habit of sleeping than we did. But please remember that there's not necessarily an easy answer - we tried just about everything else we could think of before going for the controlled crying, and it made no difference!

notanewuser

You absolutely shouldn't attempt controlled crying with a child under 6 months old.

To be honest, it shouldn't be necessary ever. Babies aren't supposed to sleep through! It's parents wanting them to do something unnatural to them that brings the 'need'.

The stress caused by controlled crying (or "abandonment" as I like to call it) can have serious repercussions in later life. But hey, so long as mum and dad get a nice evening to themselves and 8 hours sleep.

ymcas

The best bit of advice I ever got was "do whatever works until it stops working, then try something different".

However I do feel this is probably growth spurt combined possibly with increase in temperature meaning more drinks required. I also picked up on you saying that using the Gina Ford routine baby fed for 35-40 minutes but feeding on demand was less. I think for most breast fed babies the length of time feeding generally gets shorter as they get older as they get more efficient at getting milk from the breast. Mine started taking about 30 minutes per feed but by 10 weeks each feed was nearer 5-10 minutes.

pixelation

http://www.nationalbreastfeedinghelpline.org.uk/
Why not give the National Breastfeeding Helpline a call? You can skype from Cyprus. It is staffed by volunteer Breastfeeding counsellors who have all been trained for at least two years and fed their own babies.
I'll let you google Gina's training and mothering experience yourself.

roses

For the past 3 nights, he's starting to sleep better thank god. He has woken up around 3-4am looking for food, then again around 6/7am so seems to be edging back to his previous routine.

Don't think I could have coped much longer with 4 hours/night of broken sleep!

He still takes ~30 minutes to feed, except at 11pm where it now takes him 45-60 minutes! So I don't normally get to sleep until around 12/12.30am.

roses

I just thought I would post an update on this. Last week I started giving him a bottle of formula at 11pm instead of breast milk. Every night he sleeps through until 5/6am, has some more milk then goes back to bed again for another 2 hours!

I am so pleased and I feel so much better now i am getting a bit more sleep. He also doesn't seem to have a problem breast feeding in the day anymore so perhaps my milk supply was low due to me being so tired.

My DH gives him his bottle and I express, and give him the expressed milk the next day as a top up.

Gina fords definition of sleeping through the night is until 5/6am for breast fed babies so guess this is how it's going to stay until he's established on solids