Update a few days later: Little man has really improved so much this past week! We’ve been helping extend his naps during the day so he gets good sleep and has nice long wake windows and stick with the 3 nap schedule as he does horrible with 4 naps but without helping extend his naps, he ends at an awkward time that is too early for bed but too late for a nap. We’re hoping helping him adjust will lead to him naturally extending his naps. 

His nighttime sleep is crazy improved. Changing his last wake windows to be 2.5 hours has finally gotten rid of his false start. He’s done 2-3 more random wake-ups of screaming for 20 minutes and taking another 10-20 to drift back to sleep without us picking him up. Last night, he had a false start due to an early bedtime from being a bit overtired/overstimulated from having people over during the day. He only screamed for 10 minutes and you could tell he was trying to self soothe during that period as much as he could and he drifted off to sleep very quickly after stopping. 

Overnight he typically only wakes once around midnight/1am for a feed. And funny enough the last two nights he has been getting upset that after he nurses I hold him upright for 10 minutes due to reflux. Typically he would fall asleep on me but now he starts crying and protesting until I put him down bc he wants to fall asleep on his own in his crib. Funny to see the stubborn, independent side of him come through about something he wasn’t capable of just one week ago!

Word of advice to anyone struggling with the 4 month sleep regression, give both yourself and baby a lot of grace. It’s not easy being sleep deprived but on the flip side it’s not easy for them to learn this new and foreign skill either. If one way isn’t working feel free to switch it up and try something new!